The Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

by Timothy J. Keller

Sometimes you will meet a person who so shares the same mythos thread with you that he or she becomes part of the thread itself. This is very hard to describe, obviously.

Don’t let things get too passionate too quickly.

That kind of love grows out of this comprehensive attraction to the person’s character, future, and mission in life.

But “dating” today is basically nothing but a round of entertainment venues and sexual encounters.

One of the ways you can judge whether you have moved past the infatuation stage is to ask a set of questions. Have you been through and solved a few sharp conflicts? Have you been through a cycle of repenting and forgiving? Have each of you shown the other that you can make changes out of love for the other? Two kinds of couples answer no. The first kind are those who never have any conflicts. It may be they are not past infatuation. The second kind of couple has had a stormy relationship and has the same unresolved fights over and over again. They haven’t learned even the rudimentary skills of repentance, forgiveness, and change. Neither of these couples may be ready for marriage.

Get and submit to lots of community input.

invite one another into their homes (1 Peter 4:9), and that doesn’t simply mean into their houses.

Marriage is God’s gift to the church. Through Christian marriages, the story of the gospel—of sin, grace, and restoration—can be seen and heard both inside the church and out in the world.

Singles must not act as if who they marry is a decision belonging just to them as individuals.

The Bible says don’t unite with someone physically unless you are also willing to unite with the person emotionally, personally, socially, economically, and legally.

Indeed, sex is perhaps the most powerful God-created way to help you give your entire self to another human being. Sex is God’s appointed way for two people to reciprocally say to one another, “I belong completely, permanently, and exclusively to you.” You must not use sex to say anything less.

Christians are not saved by obeying God, and yet true salvation will lead to obeying God, out of gratitude.

Martin Luther, for example, was reputed to say about sexual desires, “You can’t stop birds from flying over your head, but you can stop them from making nests in your hair.”

Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be.

God’s law is for times of temptation, when “body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour.”