Round 2, Topic 2, "God's Blueprint for Marriage"

A good blueprint is just as necessary for a good marriage as it is for a building project. 

• Did you know there are as many unhappy, unfulfilled marrages among believers as there are among non-believers?
• This unhappiness is due to our failure to pay attention to God's blueprint for our marriage.
• What, then, is God's blueprint for marriage?  What does God's kind of marriage look like?

This week, we'll be studying the topic of God's blueprint for marriage.

"For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."  God makes this same statement about marriage four times in the Bible.  Genesis 2:24, Matthew 19:5, Mark 10:7-8, and Ephesians 5:31. 

First off, God's blueprint for marriage directs husbands (and wives) to leave their fathers and mothers.  This does not necessarily mean a geographical move but more of an attachment move.  You know, like cutting those apron strings?  That's what God is talking about in the verse above.  To leave your parents means that your relationship to your parents must be radically changed.  It means that you establish an adult relationbship with them.  It means that you must be more concerned about your mate's ideas, opinions, and practices than those of your parents.  It means that you must not be dependent on your parents for affection, approval, assistance, and counsel.  And it means that you must eliminate any bad attitudes towards your parents or you will be tied emotionally to them regardless of how far you move away from them.

It means you make the husband and wife relationship your priority of all human relationships.  Yes, you should be concerned about being a good daughter and mother, but you should be more concerned about being a good wife.

God's blueprint for marriage directs husbands and wives to cleave to one another.  In modern days, many couples seem to marry with the thought that if their marriage does not work out, they can always get a divorce.  When you marry, you vow to be faithful until death.  Marriage is not a matter of convenience, of chance or of the temporary. 

God says, "Marriage is a permanent relationship.  The husband and wife must cleave to one another."  (Mark 10:7-9).

Marriage is not a matter of blind chance but a deliberate choice!  A good marriage is based more on commitment than feelings or attraction.  According to Malachi 2:14 and Proverbs 2:17, marriage is an irrevocable covenant and contract to which we are bound.

Therefore, when two people get married, they promise that they will be faithful to each other regardless of what happens.

• A wife promises that she will be faithful even if the husband is afflicted with bulges, baldness, buncions, and bifocals; even if he loses his health, his wealth, his job, his charm; even if someone more exciting comes along.
• The husband promises to be faithful even if the wife loses her beauty and appeal; even if she is not as neat and tidy or as submissive as he would like her to be; even if she does not satisfy his sexual desires completely; even if she spends money foolishly or is a terrible cook.
• Marriage means that a husband and wife enter into a relationship in which they commit themselves to each other...regardless of what problems arise.

"For it is said the two shall become one flesh."  (1 Cor. 6:16).   This is marriage and intimacy at its most elementary level, designed by God.  But becoming one flesh involves more than the marriage act.  The marriage act is surely the culmination of a complete oneness, the total giving of yourself to your spouse.  But God's intention is that when two people get married, they should share everything - their bodies, their possessions, their failures, their successes, their sufferings, their blessings.  A husband and a wife are a team and each must do for the sake of the other.  Each must be as concerned about the other person's needs as he is about his own.  Husbands and wives are no longer two, but one flesh.  And this one flesh must manifest itself in practical, tangible, and demonstrable ways.  God did not intend marriage to be merely an abstract concept but a concrete reality.  Total intimacy and deep unity are part of God's blueprint for a healthy marriage.

"Husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife loves himself....each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband."  Ephesians 5:28, 33.

Total oneness is not easily achieved.  One basic hindrance to the achievement of oneness is our sinfulness.  As soon as sin entered into Adam & Eve's marriage, they knew they were both naked and were ashamed, and they began to cover up.  This attempt to cover up was evidence of their awareness of their sinfulness before God.  Immediately, they tried to hide their sin from God.

Even as sin entered and hindered the oneness of Adam and Eve, so our sinfulness is still the great barrier to marital oneness today.

Marital oneness is destroyed by selfishness, pride, bitterness, stubbornnes, neglect, impatience, harshness or cruelty.  It was sin that destroyed the oneness of Adam and Eve, and it is sin that detroys the oneness of husbands and wives today.

THAT BRINGS US TO OUR NEED FOR JESUS CHRIST!~

First of all, we need Jesus Christ to bring us into a right relationship with God.  Not only do we need Jesus Christ to bring us into a right relationship with God, we also need Jesus Christ to help us to be rightly related to each other.  Jesus Christ came into the world to destroy the barriers that exist between man and man, as well as between man and God.  Jesus Christ alone can take a sinful, selfish woman and man and enable them to leave father and mother, cleave to one another, and become one flesh.

"But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.  For He himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility..." (Ephesians 2:13)

He gives men the Holy Spirit, who produces in them the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

He gives us the Holy Spirit, who enables sinful men and women to leave father and mother, to cleave to one another, and to become one flesh.

*taken from Strengthening Your Marriage by Wayne A. Mack
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Questions & Answers to share with your KOTH partner:

1. Who originated the marriage institution?  (Genesis 2:18-25)
2. What are the purposes of marriage?  (Compare Genesis 1:28; 2:18; Ephesians 5:22-32)
3. According to Genesis 2:24, what is the primary human relationship in life?
4. What does leaving mother and father involve?
5. List some of the things that married couples must do to promote and manifest oneness in marriage.
6. What are some of the barriers to deep oneness?
7. Discuss your marriage in terms of leaving and cleaving and oneness.  Have you really left your parents?  In what ways is your marriage being adversely affected because you are following your parents' example of handling stress, facing problems, reacting to trials/tribulations, etc?  Is your spouse the number one human being in your life?
8. Are you really committed to your mate?  How do you react to your mate's weakness, failures, needs, and problems?  Does your treatment of your mate depend upon his performance?  Must he earn your affection and approval?
9. How would you rate the intimacy or sharing level of your marriage?  Do you think mostly in terms of "me" and "him," or "we"?  Think of the level of your spiritual, intellectual, emotional, sexual, recreational, financial, parental, communicational, occupational, and creative oneness.  Where is your oneness weak?  Where is it strong?  How can you improve your weak areas?
10. Study Matthew 5:31-32 and 19:1-9 to discover how permanent the marriage relationship is.  Share them with your partner.

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For further reading, "Boundaries In Marriage," by Christian psychologists Drs. Cloud and Townsend, will help you establish healthy boundaries in a wounded and hurting marriage.