Prologue
For the time will come when people will not endure sound doctrine, but they will gather to themselves teachers in accordance with their own desires, having itching ears, and they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn to myths.
—2 Timothy 4:3–4
When we consider the clever undermining of marriage that has gone on for too long without enough people noticing, it hearkens back to the beginning of time. Ever since Satan slithered into the Garden of Eden, he has been trying to corrupt God’s design for marriage. As Jesus said in John 8:44, the devil is "a liar and the father of lies," a characteristic on display when he tempted Eve to take the forbidden fruit by telling her: "You surely will not die!" (Gen. 3:4).
Because Adam and Eve sinned, everyone since has a sin nature and susceptibility to a hardened heart. This is why the writer of Hebrews advised believers: "But exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin" (Heb. 3:13). Jesus even admonished the apostles when they failed to understand His miraculous power after He fed four thousand with seven loaves of bread and a few fish: "Why do you reason that you have no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand? Are your hearts still hardened?" (Mark 8:17) Jesus, in Matthew 19:8, speaking to the question posed by the Pharisees concerning divorce, talks of "the hardness of your hearts," citing from the days of Moses. We are all susceptible to a hardened heart and, thus, need remedy.
Today we are sinners who are no better than those in any other time of history, no matter how enlightened we think we are in our modern technological age. We face the same human nature and predisposition toward sin, the same Satan, and the same response to our condition: hardened hearts. When we ignore our susceptibilities, weaknesses, and Satan’s fiery darts, we risk not only eternity, but we also damage the very ones we are to love.
The predisposition to sin first appeared in the third chapter of Genesis. With it started a particular thread that runs through the Old and New Testaments. In the same chapter the Lord Himself cited it and prescribed the remedy. Proverbs repeatedly calls it out; in the New Testament the apostles Peter and Paul consistently refer to its countermeasures. Yet church leaders of the past fifty years have ignored it to the disservice of many women and their marriages. I am talking about the woman’s natural predisposition (a sinful desire) to supplant her husband’s God-ordained position in marriage. There is a theme of rebellion by wives throughout Scripture: Eve, Lot’s wife, Hosea’s wife, the contentious wives of Proverbs, the woman at the well who had five husbands, and others; and it has been brushed aside by pastors, authors, and counselors for the last five decades.
The absence of teaching and admonitions about the marriage foundations in our pulpits and writings is deafening. Because of this oversight, many women fail to grasp their role in the marriage and lack a check on their sinful impulses. They are hardened in their sin to the point that they don’t see it in their own hearts nor other women’s. This condition is a blind spot, not just for women, but of our culture and in our churches.
Though not the only, this common thread is an underlying consideration, one I suggest readers keep in mind as I review each of the four foundations in the pages that follow.
Contemporary church leaders who neglect biblical standards in their teaching on marriage are in error. If Paul were alive today, he would be calling out Christian communities for misconstruing biblical principles of marriage, similar to what he did with the Corinthians.
The foundations I outline are easily reviewed and verified through Scripture. Our challenge is to remove the scales of secular influence that corrupt our understanding in order to embrace God’s design for marriage.
Nonnegotiable Foundations
Scripture says much about the husband-wife relationship, providing direction and admonishments that speak to loving, satisfying, sanctified, and holy relationships. The Bible’s rich content speaks to the reality of who we are and provides a way for us to love one another, despite our innate sin nature.
The Bible provides foundational principles for Christian husbands and wives to maintain their relationship in a reconciled state, each understanding their position, and each understanding and holding to their obligations to each other. And, most importantly, to God. These principles are the biblical basis from which pastors and authors should teach and counsel.
The biblical principles I speak of are foundational. A godly marriage relationship rests on them. They cannot be left out of a marriage without negative repercussions. Christians must explicitly acknowledge and practice what Scripture teaches about marriage to guard against slipping into the destructive thinking and behavior that dominates modern culture. Extra-biblical teachings must be rejected when they contradict biblical foundations. But how can they be recognized when these foundational principles are not even taught in so many churches?
Much of what Scripture says about the husband-wife relationship is omitted from pulpits and Christian books. Why do pastors choose to withhold this rich and necessary content? How can Christian couples expect to have loving, satisfying, sanctified, and holy marriages if they are not taught the biblical constructs within which they are to conduct themselves?
What are the biblical principles that are foundational to Christian marriage? The contemporary Christian would be hard-pressed to cite them. Over the past fifty years, the biblical tenets of Christian marriage have been pushed aside under the pressure of hostility by the secular culture toward Christian values.
Christian preachers, counselors, and authors are eager to keep up with their secular counterparts in the "mind sciences." Many swap biblical truths to tickle their own ears and the ears of their followers. Secular voices rooted in evolution and spouting feminism and progressivism have overcome too many Christian leaders’ outlook. Then we wonder why there isn’t much of a difference between divorce rates among church members and those of the general population.
Filling the void left by the lack of biblical instruction are a host of secular ideas about the position, disposition, and predispositions of both husband and wife. Messages that permeate culture and have seeped into the pulpits and writings help accelerate a wife’s natural, sinful rebellion —rooting in her predisposition toward desiring her husband's position in the marriage. In talking with Eve after the fall, God outlined the inherent conflict that would exist between men and women because of sin: "I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth, and in pain you will bring forth children; your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you" (Gen. 3:16). The same predisposition to overrule God and her husband that affected Eve still exists today among women.
There are four biblical foundations that are particular to the marriage relationship. These themes appear throughout the Old and New Testaments and are upheld explicitly and consistently throughout Scripture. They are:
• The husband holds the position of headship in the marriage.
• The wife must always be ready to submit in a heartfelt manner to her husband.
• Becoming one is a defining trait of a Christian marriage.
•The bilateral practice of repentance and forgiveness must be a dynamic that is embraced by both husband and wife.
I invite you to read on to apprehend these biblical foundations and understand some of the topics related to the erosion of biblically based marriage.