God's Standard In Marriage

EVERY HUSBAND MUST LOVE HIS WIFE AS HIMSELF, AND EVERY WIFE MUST RESPECT HER HUSBAND. Ephesians 5.33.

I read in the newspaper the other day about a poor wife who was wailing and mourning about the callousness of her husband. Early in marriage they loved each other and worked together extremely hard to earn much money and become comfortable. When the going got tough, the wife left her job to take care of her children and her husband.

Pretty soon, the husband, now rich and famous, began to neglect his wife and even the children. He had his eyes set on women in the marketplace who were younger and more beautiful than his overworked and haggard wife at home! He often became irritated and angry with his wife and children and began abusing them. Soon, the unkind and unloving husband left his family and shifted in with his new flame! Husbands often put the blame on their wives saying that they stopped caring for them! While the psychologists agree that there is some truth in it, surely, all the blame cannot be put on the wives’!

I was in a taxi some years ago. The taxi driver said that he was a family man with four kids and a hardworking wife. He too worked hard to earn enough for them and to save. What he said next took me by surprise! “When I become rich, I want to have a second wife or a mistress!” I had heard that people used to do that in the olden days! But today? Strangely, once their honeymoon is over, many men harbour such wild thoughts and relish it! Our entertainment media glamourises it. Men become the victims, even Christians!

God’s Word puts love and marriage in the right perspective. It holds the relationship between husband and wife as solemn and sacred before God and man. There is no provision made for failure or divorce. It is good for atleast you and I, to take serious note of the standards of the Scripture about the marriage relationship. It will help the married and the soon to be married to have God’s view and expectations about one’s marriage. It will help us to throw out the world’s flippant view of marriage and divorce from our minds and even thoughts. It will safeguard us from the present-day scourge of extra-marital relationships, adultery, divorce and broken lives!

Listen to Jesus words, "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,' and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'? So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate" (Mt 19.4-6). Jesus had set for all times, the parameters of marriage - ‘One plus one becoming One and not one plus two or three as you like!’

The apostle Paul set the basic foundation for marriage stability and success, “every husband must love his wife as himself, and every wife must respect her husband”. The husband loving other women more than his wife for any reason is wrong and dangerous. The wife respecting her husband is becoming old-fashioned in our progressive society, but it is basic to marriage on God’s terms!

Pray with me: Dear Lord Jesus, You are very direct and strict in Your teaching about marriage. As Your disciple, I must uphold Your standard in marriage and not follow the world’s sinful trend. Help me Lord! Amen.