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The Bible Teaching Commentary on Genesis: The Book of Foundations
Commentaries that specialize on training the teacher!
Paul J. Bucknell
Defending the Design of Marriage
Many people have a problem with accepting a design for marriage. There are at least two groups of people who argue against design.
- The large majority of people protest a design for marriage. They want to live their lives without God telling them what to do. A design means there is a God. If they accept a design, then they need to accept a Designer.
- A second group is much smaller. They are the disillusioned. They hope there is a design of a beautiful marriage. But perhaps, their parents or friends had a poor marriage. Or maybe they themselves had marriage problems. They thought they did all the right things, but their marriage went sour. Now they are skeptics.
Despite these rebellious and doubters, there is clear evidences that marriage is built by design. Understanding and accepting the design of marriage, is crucial to a good married life.
The closer one lives his or her life by God's design, the more beautiful the marriage will be. From this follows an important corollary. The more a person lives apart from God's design in their marriage, the more he or she will suffer pain, loneliness, emotional hardness and spiritual guilt.
Below are six evidences supporting God's design of marriage.
1) The Architect: Designs require a designer2) The Communicator: Passing the plans on
3) The Explainer: Innate desire for marriage
4) The Rewarder: High esteem for good marriages
5) The Maker: Proof in the pudding
6) The Judge: Carrying out the laws
| If man was designed, then we should expect a design for marriage itself. We see natural support for this in the male and female features but also in their desires for marriage. Architects love the chance to explain the purposes for their designs of their great projects. We should expect God to have a design that He shares with us. In fact we find clear imprints of design all through the bodies of men and women. This could have been disputed before but now there is clear genetic information detailing the chemical codes that are operating beneath a person's skin. If there is a code, there must be a coder. If there is a physical design, indeed there is likely to have a design of purpose for their lives and more specifically the way they interrelate in marriage. |
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| How would we know about God's design for our marriages? Is it possible for the Coder or Designer to pass hints of His design on to mankind so that we would understand this innate aspiration for happily married life? We believe so. After all, God our Designer has also given us ears to hear coded sounds in the forms of words and languages as well as the brain to interpret and process the information. More than this, we find that man is able to reflect about what he hears. He also has a built in desire to communicate with a greater power. This makes it very likely that God has designed man to apprehend to some degree things that God would want to communicate with mankind about marriage or any other matter. Perhaps most important, God has shown Himself very involved in the welfare of mankind. He has displayed His concern for man and so it would not surprise us for Him to pass to mankind important information about how marriage works. We see God's concern when He chose to send His Son Jesus Christ to be a sacrifice for His people's sins. God intensely cares about what happens to mankind. God's greatest prophet, Jesus, clearly affirmed God's design for marriage and the reliability of this prime source from the Book of Genesis.
We should feel fairly confident that this Designer of our bodies has also passed on important accurate information about how we are to operate our lives, even our marriages. |
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| Where do we find this information about marriages? We have the Bible that speaks very clearly about the origin of man, woman and marriage. The Bible claims to be God's voice. Do we have other sources that give a reasonable explanation of marriage? If so, how do they compare? It is interesting that there are no other serious attempts to explain or define marriage other than in the Bible. Religions and philosophies speak about many matters, but they are critically weak in addressing the origin and purpose of marriage. There are of course denials by these philosophies and hedonism that there is no design. The nature programs try hard to convince us that there are animals that choose not to only have one mate for life. These programs try to have us apply this to mankind with the resulting conclusion that man does not need monogamous marriages. However, they do not explain the design of male and female. Nor do they attempt to explain the differences between animals choosing mates by instinct and man choosing by his will and purpose. Marriage is much more than living together. Animals know nothing of vows and pledges, conversations nor moral and immoral. Mankind is a completely different kind of creature. Did you honestly ever hear anyone explain why mankind marries at all?! The Genesis account speaks very clearly on both the origins of mankind but also the purpose and design for marriage. |
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| We agree that many people are not faithful in their marriages. This does not disprove God's design for marriages. The Bible itself records such situations and societies. Let us make two observations that are supported by socialistic studies. 1) Most people agree that a bad marriage is like poison. Divorcees face personal pain, loneliness, disease and distress. This pain is also passed onto their children. Many studies affirm this. Have you heard of a child praising any parent who haphazardly finds different partners? Not at all. 2) Most people highly esteem a good marriage. A person will feel some good emmanate from a happily married couple. The children that come from such marriages on the whole develop into well balanced adults. The child and society will praise the faithful couple. My wife and I will soon be attending a 50th anniversary. That is a very happy occasion! Those who observe God's design as expressed in the scriptures have happy marriages and gain the rewards of such a marriage. |
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| Society teaches the importance of marriage by its virtual appearance in different cultures. We would expect that if God had implanted this aspiration for marriage between man and woman, we would find this aspiration around the world along with its cultural manifestations. This is exactly what we find. Cultures might view marriage slightly different, but the special separation of man and woman from others to each other is accepted as normal. Even the most ancient law codes had laws against adulteresses. The man and woman are expected to function as one unit. Anybody knows that marriage is accepted in any country. Marriage, in other words, goes beyond culture and right back to creation itself. For example, we do not see a law given to Moses about the need to marry. Instead we see laws regulating and validating the natural inclination of man to marry. Man was not to covet another's wife. Adultery is evil. This is the same in other regions of the world even without any Christian influence. |
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| Why do some unbelievers have better marriages than some Christians? We would agree that this is a serious problem but in a sense it only affirms the principles of God's design. Only those that go counter to God's principles will face marital problems. Those who claim to know God are in a sense tested in their marriage. If they obey God, then their marriage will be blessed. If not, then everyone will know. This is the reason the apostle Paul put a good marriage as a requirement for Christian leaders. The design is there for anyone to learn and follow. Time will prove it in their marriage lives. We are looking at how well a couple imitate God's principles rather than what a couple says they believe. |
Some people are very bitter against God and any plans He might have. It is common for those who have seen hypocrisy in their parents' lives to have bitter lives against God and anything He says. We would encourage these people, as hard as it might be, to put aside their bitterness. Please consider that it is not the happy marriage that troubles your life but their unfaithfulness. Reject your parents' model but do not reject the principles of life. The principles are true for any who follow them and many blessings follow from them. Those that reject them will find empty lives.
Summary
The happiest people are those with a good marriage. They have gone through difficult times that have tested their principles and allegiance. Those that persevere without shutting down their hearts have found the deep purpose for which God made them in marital intimacy.
It is hard not to be touched by a truly loving couple.
Read more exciting and practical articles on marriage. Just click on a link or graphic below.
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