Marriage Is Not Ultimate

I recently caught up with a college friend in town for a mutual friend's wedding. Now in our mid- to late-20s, we talked about love, significant others, and marriage. We expressed fears and anxieties, hopes and dreams. We asked the typical questions: Is this "the one"? Are we compatible? Will she accept me? Will I be happy forever with her? All of this got me thinking about how much the YOLO ideology has affected the minds of young Christian singles when it comes to marriage.

We live in interesting, strange times, especially in regard to marriage. Some of what I see is positive, but most is downright upsetting. Seeking to escape the enslaving small-mindedness of caveman traditions, our generation fights to redefine and delay marriage at the same time. While the LGBTQ community demands their so-called right to marry, heterosexuals devalue it by delaying marriage for as long as possible.

Though the sages of our age encourage heterosexuals not to marry early, most still want the benefits of marriage. There's an inescapable desire for love, commitment, sex, and deep intimacy. Carl Ellis exposes the irony:

A casual observer of today's Western culture would be hard-pressed to miss the prevailing trends toward marriage devaluation. As increasing numbers of heterosexual couples are opting to do "married people things" absent the marriage commitment (e.g., cohabitate, have and raise children, etc.), marriage itself is viewed with considerably less favor than a generation ago.   Continue at Phillip Holmes

Book Review: Friends and Lovers by Joel. R. Beeke

There appears to be a marriage book renaissance going on within the Reformed-ish circles of evangelicalism and this is a very good thing indeed. One only has to look at the divorce rates both inside and outside the church to see that marriage is in crisis. But why? Why are we so unhappy in our marriages? In Friends and Lovers: Cultivating Companionship and Intimacy in Marriage, Joel Beeke argues it’s a gospel issue—and the true hope for a God-glorifying marriage is found in Jesus:

By nature we are ignorant of what true love and marriage should be, but Christ our prophet offers us guidance in the Bible. We are guilty of dishonoring marriage through our disobedience towards the God who designed it, but Christ our priest shed his blood for the forgiveness of our sins and now intercedes for us. We are rebels without the strength to overcome the evil that distorts and disrupts our human relationships, but Christ our king conquers sin and rules us by his mighty Spirit, making all things new—including our marriages.

In looking at Christ as the foundation of our marriages, Beeke divides his argument into two parts—the need for spouses to be friends and friendship’s impact on marital intimacy. This pattern is familiar, but worth repeating. On cultivating friendship within marriage, he writes:

Many people in our culture think that love is something you fall into and therefore can easily fall out of. That might be true of passing emotions, but true friendship relies on cultivation: uprooting bad attitudes, planting daily seeds of love towards one another, pulling out weeds and eliminating pests that threaten to choke the relationship, watering the tender plants with daily prayer, and then taking time to reap a harvest of love and enjoyment in each other’s company. . . . Friendship does not persist, deepen, and grow automatically. . . . [It] cannot be warmed up by thirty seconds in the microwave. So much today is instant, but friendship is not. It costs something. It costs you yourself, your commitment, and your vulnerability. There are no rush orders in friendship. It must be baked slowly, gently, and continually if we want the flavor we are looking for.  Continue at Aaron Armstrong

Sex In Marriage

As it is Valentine’s Day tomorrow, we thought it would be beneficial to highlight marriage, and specifically sex in marriage.

The Intimate Marriage

Dr. R.C. Sproul has taught a series and written book on marriage. In these resources, Dr. Sproul walks through some of the toughest things couples struggle with today: lack of communication, sex, roles, divorce, anger, and more. He shares what the Bible says about each, as well as lessons He has learned from his own marriage of forty years.

Watch: You can watch The Intimate Marriage series online for free.

Read: You can purchase The Intimate Marriage book from the Ligonier store.

The Puritan’s View of Sex in Marriage

There are many caricatures and missinformation when it comes to how Christians through the ages have viewed sex in marriage. In Dr. Joel R. Beeke’s Living for God’s Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism, he dedicates a chapter to marriage, in which he discusses the Puritan’s view.

Marital love must be sexual, so that both marital partners can give themselves fully to each other with joy and exuberance in a healthy relationship marked by fidelity. Reformers such as Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin established this aspect of marriage by abandoning the medieval Roman Catholic attitudes that marriage was inferior to celibacy, that all sexual contact between marital partners was a necessary evil to propagate the human race, and that a procreative act that involved passion was inherently sinful.  Continue at Ligonier

Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer

Jesus’ “high priestly prayer” (John 17) is only about 650 words. It takes only 3 minutes and 30 seconds to read it aloud. But it will take all eternity for us to fully understand it! 

I recently found it helpful to break down Jesus’ petitions and propositions into the following categories:   Read them HERE

True Lips Wait? Sexual Abstinence, Romantic Longing, and Monogamous Lips

There is no explicit biblical ban on premarital kissing, but any honest person knows that there are kisses that can only be considered sexual, naturally leading to the sex act itself. These young Christians are not afraid of their bodies, they are afraid of sinning against God and losing something precious to themselves as well.

In a world that has made monogamy an embarrassment, these young Christians want to offer their future spouse the gift of monogamous lips. In an age of instant sexual gratification, these young believers believe that true lips wait. This is what a counter-revolution looks like. Read it all HERE