Courtship, Marriage, and the Family

by J. W. Jepson, D.Min.

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The Author hereby grants permission to reproduce the text of this article, without changes or alterations*, as a ministry, but not for commercial or non-ministry purposes.

Contents

CHAPTER 6: THE FAMILY

1.

WHY MARRIAGE, AND WHERE DID IT COME FROM?

You are driving down a major freeway. Traffic is heavy. Weather conditions make the going difficult. Now and then you go by a vehicle that left the pavement and ended up off the shoulder or in the median strip. Most are damaged. Some appear to be a total loss.

"I wonder how many people have been hurt in these accidents," you say to yourself, half aloud.

A few miles later things really start getting wild. Wrecked cars are everywhere. You watch in disbelief as drivers leave their lanes, veer off the roadway, and crash. Some even jump the concrete dividers and land on the other side.

Wounded, hurting people--men, women, and children--stagger around, dazed and crying.

"This is bizarre!" you gasp. "Are these people crazy? ignorant? reckless? They can't break the laws of nature like this and get by! Why don't they use common sense and follow the rules?"

Of course, this scenario is obviously surrealistic. It is obvious because we assume that practically everyone knows the basic physical laws that are involved and obeys them. When it comes to driving, they are embodied in what is called "the basic rule."

One wishes that more people would also know and obey the basic moral laws that govern human conduct. Many fail to understand that, just as there are physical laws that govern physical action, there are also moral laws that govern moral action.

Just as physical laws come out of the nature of physical reality, so also moral laws come out of the nature of moral reality. Moral laws derive from the nature and relationships of moral beings--human beings.

These universal moral laws are embodied in the Bible. The Bible is in total, complete, and precise harmony with objective reality. It fits the nature of things perfectly. For this reason it is directly and vitally relevant to all of life. It is the completely reliable instruction manual of life.

Any and every deviation from the Bible is a deviation from objective reality. It is a deviation from nature and nature's God. For this reason every social problem that is the result of human behavior can be traced back eventually to a violation of Biblical principles and/or a deviation from Biblical norms.

Just as in our imaginary freeway scene we saw the tragic results of violating basic physical laws, so also in real life we witness the tragic results of violating basic moral laws. The wreckage of broken lives and broken relationships is strewn along the roadways of life. Everywhere wounded, hurting people stumble around in confusion, crying in pain. If only they would live God's way, the way they were created to live! Our hearts go out to them. We try to inform them, but most either do not hear or do not listen.

People who live by the Bible are living right, and are enjoying the blessings and benefits. People who live contrary to the Bible are living wrong, and are suffering the unavoidable consequences.

Nowhere is this demonstrated more vividly than in the relationships between the sexes. God made us male and female (Genesis 1:27), a fact that certainly fits objective reality!

ORIGIN OF MARRIAGE

God looked at everything He created and saw that it was very good (Genesis 1:31). Then He saw Adam all by himself and said, "that is not good" (Genesis 2:18).

So, "The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept; and he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto Adam" (Genesis 2:21, 22).

The word woman means man-kind--man-ness--taken out of man. That was the only time that a woman came from a man. Since then men have come from women.

Jesus Christ rose from the dead, proving that what He said is the truth. And He stated clearly that Adam and Eve were real, historical persons (Matthew 19:4).

We did not come from a blob of goo out of some primordial stew. God created us in His likeness and after His image (Genesis 1:26, 27). We all descended from one man and one woman--one human pair.

When God created Eve, He created her out of Adam's side--not out of his head to dominate him, not out of his feet to be subjugated by him, but out of his side as his equal as a human being.

We see, then, that it was God Himself who created marriage. This deep relationship, this lifetime unity, of one man and one woman is not a human invention. It is not a product of human social development. God created it, and He owns it. Marriage is God's property.

God takes marriage very seriously. Many people play and trifle with it. God does not. He has placed some of the most solemn sanctions around this relationship to protect it.

We enter into this holy relationship. We live and function within it. We grow personally and as a couple in its disciplines. We enjoy its benefits. But we do not own it. It is God's.

Marriage is a temporal, earthly relationship. There will be no marriage in Heaven. But it is vital here on earth. God created it to function for us here in this world.

This is not to say that everybody has to be married. Many are single by choice, many not by choice. For certain reasons the apostle Paul was single. Although single ministries have their place, our purpose here is to affirm marriage.

God has revealed to us the nature of marriage and the way it operates. He set its rules and established its boundaries. We cannot do whatever we wish with our marriages, because our marriages do not belong to us. Your marriage belongs to God. If it is going to work, you must conduct it by God's rules. You must live it the way God has prescribed.

Because God created marriage for the entire human race, He has a stake in your marriage and we have a stake in each other's marriages. Our marriages are not entirely our own private affair. Whether or not your marriage succeeds is everybody's business.

Marriages are the building-blocks of society. Take a block here and there out of a wall, and the wall is weakened. Take out enough, and the wall collapses.

We are not a collection of independent, isolated individuals. What one does affects others, sometimes many others. What happens in one marriage affects other marriages. It affects the whole fabric of marriage and thus the whole fabric of society. For this reason God has a vital interest in your marriage. He is for your marriage; He is committed to your marriage; and He has provided all the resources needed to make your marriage succeed.

We must be careful to avoid non-biblical notions and advice about marriage. "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly" (Psalm 1:1). Beware of such "quicksand counsel." It has wrecked many a marriage. We must go to God's word instead and learn how to live our marriages.

The word of God declares that marriage is honorable in all (Hebrews 13:4).

"But I didn't want my daughter to marry that guy!"

Maybe not. But they are married. Honor that marriage. Do not try to undermine it or break it up.

Some might say, "I think I married out of the will of God." Even if you did, it is now the will of God for you to stay married. It would be wrong to look somewhere else for the "right person."

PURPOSE OF MARRIAGE

God created marriage to establish the basic structure of society--the family--and in that basic structure to develop and perpetuate humanity physically, intellectually, emotionally, socially, and above all spiritually.

"And God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply'" (Genesis 1:28). We certainly have accomplished that purpose!

Malachi 2:15 says that one important reason for marriage is to produce godly offspring.

God intends that children be raised within a family, as He has defined the term in His word. As we all know, many children are being raised by a single parent. These are also families, but they are incomplete families, "handicapped" families, as any struggling single parent knows all too well. We need to pray for and support these fragmented families. They are not God's norm. And they certainly are not the "complete" families idealized in the media. To picture a single parent as a liberated person in a "whole" situation mocks reality.

Some years ago a bright young fellow about 12 years of age was being interviewed on television.

"I don't belong to my parents; I belong to myself!" he asserted with an arrogant air.

That young lad probably did not come up with that profound idea by himself. It had been put into his head by a secular society and he bought it without mature, critical thinking.

Children to do not belong to themselves. They do not belong to the state. They belong to God and He has placed them under parents for godly training.

"I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully" (1 Timothy 5:14).

Although children are to be raised and nurtured within the family and surrounded by the strong bond of marriage, we must avoid the mistake of basing marriage on our children. Children are only temporary members of the home. Marriage on the other hand is a lifetime bond. Some couples stay together only "for the sake of the children," and doing so is commendable. But it is far from what God intended marriage to be. When children realize that they are the only "glue" holding the marriage and home together, they carry a burden no child should have to bear. It makes them feel insecure, pulled in two.

Children should see their parents' relationship solid and unshakable. Then they will feel secure. They realize that they live in a framework that is stronger than they are.

Also, God created marriage as a safeguard against immorality (1 Corinthians 7:2). To avoid fornication, every man is to have his own wife and every wife is to have her own husband. "To each his/her own."

We go again to Malachi 2:15. "Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth."

Often adultery does not start with the flesh. It starts in the human spirit. Marital problems develop deep down. Feelings go unexpressed. Problems go unresolved. The oneness of coupleness erodes. So the guy goes off to work miffed, harboring strange and pained feelings. On the job he works for eight hours beside some pretty little thing. He begins to tell her his problems and feelings.

With sympathetic eyes and a tender voice she responds, "I understand."

What is happening? He might not even care how pretty she is; however, something is happening in his spirit. An emotional attraction is developing. We all know the rest of the story.

We are not to throw our affections and passions around, but to give them all to our spouse.

Another reason God created marriage is to provide completeness, total and intimate companionship, and mutual help. There are two words in the King James Version of Genesis 2:18 that have become part of our vocabulary as one word. "I will make him an help meet for him." We call this a "helpmeet." It means "suitable." I will make him a helper who is suited for him. It is like two halves that are designed to fit together. One half is not complete without the other.

Both spouses are not the same. If both were strong on the same points and weak on the same points, they would neither complement each other nor complete each other. God made you and your spouse to fit each other.

God looked at Adam and said in effect, "Man, you are incomplete. Something is missing." So God made this girl, Eve, to complete what was incomplete in Adam's life. God knew exactly how to make her, and she moved right in and filled the vacancies in Adam's life and personality.

That is the way God intends it to be, not two individuals competing on similar strong points. Marriage is a duet, not a duel.

Another very important reason for marriage is to bring a man and a woman together in a permanent, total relationship that demands and also provides the greatest possible opportunity for the development, expression, and fulfillment of love in all of its qualities.

You know what happened when that gal married you. She got into everything! She rearranged your life. Now, God created the relationship, and the only way it is going to work properly is for you to surrender yourselves to each other and for both of you to surrender yourselves to God.

That is the last thing we are willing to do. "Me? Surrender myself? I'm the master of my fate. I'm the captain of my soul! No, I want to live to please ME, and I want YOU to live to please me."

Pity the poor person who marries someone like that. The only way they can coexist is to balance their selfish interests and involve themselves in pursuits that provide mutual self-gratification. But that is a poor substitute for real love.

And real love is what many are afraid of. Love is not get; love is give. Love is not "what can you do for me?" or, "how can you please me?" Love is a commitment to someone else's well-being and happiness.

Someone has said, "Sex says, 'anybody will do'; love says, 'nobody else will do'," and there is a world of difference between the two.

So God provided the beautiful relationship called marriage, the best opportunity for the development and expression of love, total surrender to God and to each other under God, where each lives for the other and both live for God, where we have to subordinate our own ways and our own desires, and put the other person's greater interests ahead of our own lesser interests.

Marriage is not kid stuff. It is a grown-up affair. It is for adults only. It is a relationship that forces us to discipline ourselves and grow up. It demands adulthood, maturity, and self-giving.

Swallow your pride. Take responsibility. Bring those feelings under control. Someone else's higher interests are at stake.

This is the only way we grow as a person. We grow in relationship, not in isolation. Our spouse is a primary agent under God in our growth and development. We are not "married singles," pursuing our own personal self-gratification and so called "self-fulfillment." We are couples, and God tells us to work on our coupleness, to move forward together to the oneness He has for us.

2.

COURTSHIP: THE SELECTION PROCESS

According to the words of a song that was popular in an earlier generation, "it's an old, old story of a boy and a girl in love."

It certainly is. Somewhere in our biological and psychological development we move from childhood into adolescence. This process includes what is known as puberty.

The story is told of a boy who was giving a patriotic recitation that included Patrick Henry's famous line. Raising his voice at the dramatic moment he exclaimed, "Give me puberty, or give me death!"

The awakening does not usually come on with such urgency. Normally a boy begins to look differently at what were once those little freckle-faced nuisances in pigtails. They are growing up. He experiences strange new feelings and warm fuzzies.

Although it happens to young people at different ages, it does happen. You begin to make eyes. A casual touch triggers a sensation. Something is going on inside of you. You feel awkward. You don't know exactly what to do or what to say. Whenever you open your mouth, you think you put your foot into it. You want to make a good impression, but you blow it.

Welcome to the human race!

Our culture has created this period of development we call adolescence. Most young people become sexually awake and aware years before they are ready for marriage. This delay produces stress and tension.

This is not to advocate young marriages (and it is certainly not an argument for premarital sex). Our complex society places heavy demands on us. Adulthood is serious business. Marriage and all that goes with it requires maturity. It is for adults only.

In some societies marriages are arranged by others, usually parents. The couple might or might not have something to say in the matter. In those societies people are expected to love the person they marry.

By contrast, in our western culture we marry the person we love, with the intent of continuing to love. This creates what we call courtship.

Through the teenage years boys and girls develop in the way they relate to each other. In the healthiest process the progress is from the general to the specific. It is a narrowing process, a selective process.

It is much healthier if adolescents avoid getting locked into exclusive, emotionally intense "boy-friend/girl-friend" relationships, where they go through painful "break-up/make-up" cycles. You know the story. Here is this fifteen year old girl, sobbing and crying. She just broke up with her boy-friend. Her world is shattered. Her life is over.

This premature boy-friend/girl-friend idea is promoted by the secular media. You have to have a boy-friend. If you don't, you're not "in."

"How are you and your boy-friend doing?" Well, who cares? Have lots of friends. Develop many healthy acquaintances and friendships. Then, as time goes by you can narrow the field through a prayerful, intelligent process. As you mature, you will have a much better idea of who you are and who they are. The person you marry might not even be among the people you knew at fifteen or sixteen. You might meet him or her in another community, in college, or even after college.

Meaningful dating usually begins about middle to late teens. As the selection process narrows, dating eventually leads to courtship; courtship leads to engagement; engagement leads to marriage.

Yes, dating is a lot of fun. It is also part of a process that leads eventually to some very serious results. For that reason it should not be played with. The ultimate purpose of dating is to "zero in" on that one person you want to spend the rest of your life with. Remember, some day you will marry someone you are or will be dating. This makes courtship an exciting experience, filled with hope and anticipation, tempered with a healthy element of uncertainty.

The most important ingredient in courtship is spiritual. A person who loves and obeys God is committed to knowing and doing His will. Such a person will be very prayerful and thoughtful in dating and courtship.

God is interested in your dating and your courtship. He wants you to have His best. So don't miss it. In all of your dating let your ultimate purpose be to lock on to God's will for your life. If you want to marry in the will of God, marry according to the Bible.

God requires that Christians marry only Christians. What a wonderful day it would be if all Christians had enough sense to marry Christians. It would be better to remain single than to marry an unsaved person.

It is essential not to let one's heart run away with one's head. Courtship must be intellectual before it becomes emotional.

The Bible tells us about Samson and his impulsiveness. He saw this Philistine girl and immediately demanded of his parents, "Get her for me, for she pleases me well" (Judges 14:3). Such impulsiveness got him into a lot of trouble.

In dating intelligently, you narrow the scope of your interests and relationships as you apply the qualifications and standards that you have established. You get a clearer picture of what that special "somebody" is like. This involves a spiritual and intellectual evaluation in a prayerful attitude

The most important element of courtship is spiritual. "He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord" (Proverbs 18:22 New King James Version). "A prudent wife is from the Lord " (Proverbs 19:14 NKJV).

The awareness of this fact guides us in the selection process. "Going steady," then, is not an emotional or social fad. It is an intelligent part of the process that leads eventually to engagement and marriage. Along the way we decide where we are going and who will go with us.

We learn that it is important not only to find the right person but also to be the right person, to prepare ourselves so we can bring to the one we will marry a person of the highest Christian standards and qualities.

Accordingly, in dating and courtship it is essential to establish and maintain the highest standards of purity and mutual respect. A young man said to his pastor, "I don't know how to act around a girl on a date. How do I treat her?" The pastor replied, "Treat her the way you want other young men to treat your sister."

Most girls want to be respected. Your date is not your property. She is not your toy. Let her know by your words and actions that you think more of her than that. A kiss means a lot more than just "thanks for the hamburger and fries." The Bible instructs men to treat younger women as sisters "with all purity" (1 Timothy 5:2).

Young lady, if that young man does not treat you with respect, eliminate him from your ever-narrowing list. If he does not respect you before marriage, he will likely not respect you during marriage. Avoid the person who wants to get too physical.

We infer the principles of pre-marriage (dating and courtship) from what the Bible says about marriage itself, about who we are as human beings, and about personal relationships in general (love one another; be kind to one another; pray for one another; bear one another's burdens; build up one another).

The sacredness of marriage sets the standards of pre-marriage. If there is to be mutual respect in marriage, it must be established here. The quality of the marriage you want should determine the quality of your courtship.

Physical desire must not be the driving force in courtship. The Bible says, ". . . each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God" (1 Thessalonians 4:4, 5 New King James Version).

"Possess" here means "acquire." "Vessel" is a word used in The Scriptures to mean a spouse. It denotes our useful purpose under God. So what this passage is saying is that each person is to acquire his/her spouse "in sanctification and honor," and not in the passion of lust.

Christians are not to court the way the unconverted world does. The world puts the flesh first; believers put the flesh last. We follow the highest standards and keep our natural desires under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Even when you begin to go steady with the one person who has captivated your heart, the one you want to spend the rest of your life with, remember to keep the highest Biblical standards in your relationship. If you do that, you will come to the altar as pure virgins before God. You will be thankful that you waited.

Sex is one of the most powerful drives that God created. He created it for a specific place--marriage. Sex is like fire--delightful in the right place, but destructive elsewhere. Because God created marriage, He set the rules. The only "safe sex" is "saved sex"--sex saved for marriage. Sex is safe only in monogamous, heterosexual marriage.

Sex outside of marriage is a lie. It says something to the other person that cannot be true because the absence of the marriage vows and marriage bond proves it to be untrue. It says, "I am going all the way with you." That is not true until each says to the other, "I take you to be my wedded wife (or husband), to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part. . . ," and those moral and legal vows are established in Heaven and on earth. That is going all the way. Then when they take each other and bond as one flesh, they are really telling each other the truth.

If they get into a car wreck two weeks later and one of them is in a wheelchair for life, the other says, "I'm not walking away from you. We are one flesh. It's you and I all the way, baby."

Before then, the man and woman might claim they are going to get married. But they haven't yet. The moral and legal bond of marriage is not yet in place before God and man, and before it is, total self-giving has not been established, and sexual activity is an immoral violation of human sexuality. Also, the seeds of mistrust are sown. After marriage, the wife has reason to ask herself, "If he didn't control himself before we got married, I wonder if he is controlling himself now around other women?"

ENGAGEMENT.

Engagement is a serious commitment. It is not a blind gamble or the result of the impulse of a moment. A foundation has been laid. You have matured personally. Over a period of time your relationship has matured spiritually, intellectually, and emotionally. Engagement is a soul-commitment, and you are ready to make that commitment.

Engagement is not marriage, of course, and it does not include the privileges and rewards of marriage. Instead, it is a promise made to each other and announced to everyone else. It sets the couple on a deliberate and direct course toward marriage.

The development of your coupleness should continue during the engagement period, as indeed it should throughout marriage itself. You know each other well enough to make a life-long commitment to each other. But no matter how well you know each other before marriage, you will have some surprises once you marry!

Courtship begins the blending of a man and a woman in vital relationship. Two people in love will change each other, unless one (or both) is an immature, spoiled brat.

"This is the way I am, and I'm not going to change! You will just have to accept me the way I am." That is immaturity. That is a kid talking. Courtship for people like that is not a time of discovery; it is a time of hiding. For them, love is blind, but marriage is going to be a real eye-opener!

A mutual willingness to change--to blend--is a sign of maturity. You have not allowed your emotions to run away with you. You have learned to relate to each other on every level as human beings and as Christian adults. You can look back on your courtship with the knowledge that you built on the solid foundation of trust, integrity, and mutual respect. You honored God and obeyed His word. Christ is the Lord of your lives and your relationship. You expressed proper emotional and physical affection. You proved to yourselves and to each other that you are self-disciplined.

You are now ready for marriage.

3.

THE WEDDING

God loves weddings. He personally conducted the first one, thereby establishing the divine precedent and pattern. When Adam saw Eve for the first time, he did not say, "Give me back my rib!" No, indeed. Instead, he exclaimed, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Genesis 2:23). That was the rough equivalent of "Where have you been all my life, baby?"

Adam had seen all the animals with their mates and perhaps began to wonder where his own "other half" might be. Now there she was and he felt complete.

Jesus was fond of weddings. He was there in the beginning and participated with the Father in the establishing of marriage. He liked to talk about marriage. He likened His future return to a wedding. The Church is His Bride. There is going to be a marriage supper. Our Lord selected a wedding as the occasion for His first miracle. Yes, there is something special about a Christian wedding--Jesus is there.

In primitive cultures and cultures that are regressing to more primitive social standards and structures, the wedding is not as significant as it is in more enlightened societies. In some cultures the wedding itself might be virtually non-existent. Nevertheless, marriage does exist in those cultures and is recognized by those cultures, whatever form it takes. The structure and essential obligations are there. It is marriage and is recognized such by God and man. "Marriage is honorable in all" (Hebrews 13:4).

More enlightened cultures attach higher significance to the wedding, in view of the importance of marriage itself.

One purpose of the wedding is to provide an occasion to declare before God and man that the couple are entering into the marriage relationship by mutual consent. There is no coercion, no "club-over-the-shoulder, dragging-them-in-by-the-hair." Rebekah was asked, "Will you go with this man?" She replied, "I will go." (See Genesis 24:57, 58).

Also, the wedding is the time and place where the couple actually take each other in marriage and declare before God and established legal human authority the moral and legal commitment without which marriage does not exist.

A wedding demonstrates that the couple mean business. They prove their love by surrounding each other with the moral and legal protection of the marriage bond. Yes, there is a piece of paper, and that piece of paper has God's endorsement and He backs it up with all the authority of Heaven. God put marriage into human society and holds society responsible to uphold it. It is a sacred covenant recorded on earth as well as in Heaven (see Malachi 2:14). The vows they take have no expiration date except the one that will be placed some day on a death certificate.

They are for life.

Anything less than that is not worthy of us as human beings. Anything less is not worthy of the Creator. Only God could create something that holy, that sacred, that bonding and indissoluble.

And He did it for our good, not to put a ball and chain around our necks but to hold us to the very principles necessary for our happiness.

chapters 4-6