What is marriage?

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by good samaritan

This week I am going to be doing a few hours of marriage counseling. I have been married nearly 17 years with 4 kids and one one the way, so I have a little experience, but I want to have thorough biblical view. Often times i get different perspectives when I have posted on here. Please share biblical perspectives (scripture references would be a +). I am doing plenty of personal study, but just would like to hear how others on here would define marriage.

This week? Short order.

So they have basically decided to get married, so the counseling would not really focus on allowing them to determine if the proposed marriage is the correct course of action (I think that type of counseling requires more advanced warning).

So that leaves you with going over the basics and reaffirming the permanency of marriage, and the respective obligations of husband and wife, and parents and children.

Since you are collecting information which will be formatted by you, I'll just throw some things out here that you can collate and organise as you want.

1. Marriage is a permanent union between a man and a woman, ordained by God: (Gen 2:18-24, Matt 19:6)

2. Husbands and wives have certain mutual responsibilities and obligations to fulfill, including:
a) wives are to obey their husbands, allowing the man to be the head of the household and leader of the family
b) husbands are to love their wives, they are to care for and protect and provide for their wives and surrender their own personal will to the cause of the marriage and providing for the family
(Eph 5:22-33)
NOTE: the primary key thoughts in that passage is that men are to love their wives, and wives are to reverence their husbands. Women need to be loved primarily, whereas men need to be reverenced primarily. A huge mistake is made when women think their husband's primary felt need is to "be loved". While that's great, and needed, it isn't the MAIN thing. A man has a need to lead, he is built that way by God. Therefore the main thing he needs from his wife is to be respected as a leader. The woman on the other hand, while she certainly needs to be given proper and due respect, has a different built in primary need: the need to be loved, to know assuredly that her husband has her best interests at heart and is doing everything he can to take care of her needs both material, spiritual, and psychological. Little displays of affection such as giving the woman a flower and saying "I love you" etc are extremely important to women, whereas they are not quite as important to men. So the man has to make sure he is giving her what she needs, and the woman should understand that what REALLY matters to a God-fearing husband is not so much that she squeezes his hand and tells him she is enraptured by his good looks etc but rather that she respects him as a leader and is willing to follow his lead.

3. Children are a blessing from God, and are part of the inheritance God has for His people (Psalm 127:3). Therefore they are not to be viewed as hindrances or obstacles or problems or burdens, but as gifts from God. While their behaviour may at times be problematic, their existence is not. And therefore family planning should not view children as an EXPENSE, but as a GIFT. Which in turn means that BIBLICAL family planning should not approach children from the viewpoint of "Can we afford a(nother) child?" but rather "What God gives He provides for."

4. Large numbers of children are preferable to the standard "1.5 average children" promoted by worldly propaganda (Psalm 127:4-5). They are preferable not merely because more godly children equals "winning against the world by sheer numbers" but also because more children equals Mom and Dad usually don't wind up in a nursing home when they are old because they have more children who can take care of them, the responsibilities are spread out. It also means the entire family is stronger, the children have more siblings to rely on for assistance in life, as do the cousins, nieces, and nephews, etc. Children are "arrows", that is, weapons as it were that a man uses to advance the position, state or condition of his family in the world. "They shall speak with the enemies in the gates" means they will be prominent in society and will affect politics, so the more godly children a man has the more people there will be who will contend with the wicked for the cause of Christ.

5. Parents are responsible for the education of their children and are required to provide a Christian, Biblical, godly education for them (Eph 6:4, Deut 6:4-7). It will be observed that the Bible makes no provision for "public school" and in fact prohibits turning one's children over to the heathen for their upbringing and education. Whether homeschool or private school or private tutoring or whichever path parents take, it must be a Christian education that is given and the parents are accountable for whatever is taught (hiring a private school to teach one's children simply means the school is the hired servant of the parents, and so the parents are still accountable for what is taught, and this is also true if the parents put their children in a public school).