God's Plan for Marriage

5-7: Introduction: Q&A 4 of the Chatechism

8-What is God’s Plan for Marriage?

9-The Gospel Story

10-17 - Marriage in the Gospel Story.

The Ideal

Caring for Creation is Team Sport

It is with one man and one women

Intended to multiply image bearers throughout creation - Discipleship in the family.

God is a relational God - Support, Love,

18-23: Q&A 1, 12

24: After Sin

Sin infects all of creation including marriage

- Pain, Animosity, imbalance of power, and mistrust. Creation Suffers.

- A result is children not representing Christ well - Cain and Able.

25 - 32: Q&A 2, 3, 13

33: In Christ

Jesus Affirmed God’s initial vision for Marriage

Mark 10:2–9 NIV

Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” “What did Moses command you?” he replied. They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,” Jesus replied. “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘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 flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

Mark 10:2-

34-38: reminds us that Christ’s way is self-giving, and Marriage then reflects the Gospel Story - Submitting to one another, sacrificing for the other.

reminds us that Christ’s way is self-giving, and Marriage then reflects the Gospel Story - Submitting to one another, sacrificing for the other.

39: Marriage then is also a tool of discipleship - training us and others what it means to live in God’s Family.

40-48: Q&A 10, 14, 15

49: After Christ returns

Jesus:

Matthew 22:30 NIV

At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.

Matthew 2

Next Week why single people are important. - Only Two options, Marriage or Singleness in the Bible

We will experience a purer love without sin, and give a purer love to others.

A populated earth of people who live forever does not need multiplication.

50-54: Caution in Idolatry - Q&A 5-6

The Consistent vision for Marriage in the Story

55: Why Does it Matter?

Alternative View Points.

Some will say - The Bible did not imagine monogomous relationships between same-sex couples, And therefore all of the references of same-sex relationships are referring to abusive relationships of some sort. The problem with that interpretation is the consistent vision of Marriage as being between one man and one women. It is possible that the Bible could not imagine those marriages, because of its consistent message of what marriage is.

And so this is different then other things in the Bible, where we see different types of slavery, but over the trajectory of the Bible it argues against slavery. Or Women in leadership, which I would suggest is even argued in the first three chapters of Genesis. There is no such trajectory when it comes to marriage.

Ethics.

If God’s vision, the ideal is lived out, then a lot of the things we debate in our world would be non-issues - No “Me Too” movement, because there would be no sexual harrassment of women, No Rape, No Sex Trad, No Abortions, no abuse, no cheating, and therefore, no divorce. All of the painful things we experience in life. All of those things exist, though, not because of God’s Plan for Marriage, but because of a World who has its own plan, for sin that has infected all of us, not just some of us.

Value - Ethics - Value is the usefulness of something. Conclusion would have to be God’s vision.

Golden Rule Ethics - If it could become a universal rule - Conclusion would have to be God’s Vision.

Utilitarian Ethics - Make the most people happy - Only in this ethic would God’s vision be thrown out the window. - This is what our world is operating under - We think it is the most loving. - Love is Love

Obedience is love.

But Love is not always love.

Examples: Possessiveness - Stalking someone. Parents often give our children what they want, but if you feed your child only candy all the time to make them happy is that love. Love can also be Idolatry.

Jesus connects Love with obedience. - And living God’s vision for marriage points to Jesus’ obedient, self-sacrificing love.

Conclusion: