Love in relationships

The love between husband and wife

Conjugal love is commanded

Colossians 3:18–19 ESV

Wives, submit to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and do not be harsh with them.

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It is patterned on God’s love for his people

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The power of human love

Song of Solomon 8:6–7 ESV

Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, he would be utterly despised.

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Examples of love in courtship and marriage

Isaac and Rebekah; Jacob and Rachel; Samson and Delilah; Elkanah and Hannah; Xerxes and Esther; ; ; ; Joseph and Mary

Safeguards on human love

Sexual immorality is condemned

1 Corinthians 7:2 ESV

But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

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Adultery is condemned

Exodus 20:14 ESV

“You shall not commit adultery.

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Restrictions on divorce

Matthew 19:9 ESV

And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

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Lust is condemned

Matthew 5:28 ESV

But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

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Polygamy is forbidden

1 Timothy 3:2 ESV

Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

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