The Meaning of Marriage: A Couple's Devotional

by Timothy Keller

  Reflection: How would you respond to a married friend who said he had had a brief affair, “but it was just a lark—it meant nothing”?

  Prayer: Lord, please help me guard my eyes and thoughts by remembering the solemn nature of sex and adultery. Amen.

  May 5

  If any brother has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to live with him, he must not divorce her. And if a woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to live with her, she must not divorce him. . . . But if the unbeliever leaves, let it be so. The brother or the sister is not bound in such circumstances; God has called us to live in peace. (1 Corinthians 7:12–15)

  THE SECOND GROUND FOR DIVORCE. This is the second of the two grounds for divorce that the Bible permits. Paul says that if a Christian finds him- or herself married to a non-Christian, they should not divorce (verse 12–13). But he then asks: what if a spouse insists on leaving the marriage? Can the one who has been left divorce and remarry? The answer is yes; they are free and “not bound.” Historically, “willful desertion” has been seen as a second ground for divorce.59 Many have concluded that a spouse who engages in physical abuse can also be seen to be initiating a separation and so constitute grounds for divorce.60 Anyone contemplating divorce should never do this in a vacuum, but should get good counsel from thoughtful believers for confirmation.

  Reflection: This ground for divorce is not as easy to define as adultery. Think of the gray areas—behaviors that might or might not be considered “leaving” or “desertion.” Do you see why it is important not to make this determination by yourself?

  Prayer: Lord, divorce can never be considered or entered into without great wisdom and discernment. Make our churches places where the people considering or going through divorce get wisdom, love, and help—not indifference or rejection. Amen.

  May 6

  During the reign of King Josiah, the Lord said to me, “Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. . . . I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries.” (Jeremiah 3:6, 8)

  DIVORCE AND REDEMPTION. Marriage is meant to be permanent and so divorce is a very solemn decision. This might lead divorced people to feel they have been permanently disgraced. But in this text God has the audacity to call himself a divorced person. The self-righteous who want nothing to do with divorced persons will have to avoid God! But, you might ask, what if I was the one at fault in my divorce? Nothing in the Bible calls divorce the unforgivable sin. And never underestimate the redemptive power of God to work in an evil situation. Through David and Bathsheba’s child, Solomon, God brings Jesus Christ into the world—out of a relationship that began as an illicit affair and led to murder. It’s as if God is saying, “I love bringing good out of the hardest cases.”

  Reflection: Consider how different the Bible’s attitude is toward divorce from Western cultures (where divorce is taken lightly) and traditional cultures (where it is a permanent disgrace). Why would the Bible be so balanced and different?

  Prayer: Lord, I praise you that you are both holy and merciful, and therefore you both warn us strongly against divorce yet are gentle with those who have experienced it. Amen.

  May 7

  The Lord said to me, “Go, show your love to your wife again, though she is loved by another man and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods and love the sacred raisin cakes.” So I bought her for fifteen shekels of silver and about a homer and a lethek of barley. Then I told her, “You are to live with me many days; you must not be a prostitute or be intimate with any man, and I will behave the same way toward you.” (Hosea 3:1–3)

  A LAST RESORT. God calls the prophet Hosea to marry Gomer, a woman who is unfaithful to him (Hosea 1:2). Eventually she becomes a sexual slave of another man, but God directs Hosea not to give up on her and so he purchases her back from the man who owns her, and takes her home, seeking to restore the marriage. What does this show us? Even in the case of adultery God does not command divorce. It means that even a marriage seemingly broken beyond repair can sometimes be restored. Putting yesterday and today’s devotionals together, the Bible could not be more nuanced. Seek with all your might to save your marriage, but if it cannot be saved, don’t think of your life as permanently derailed.

  Reflection: Work to save the situation with all your might but be at peace if you can’t. What other areas of life can you apply this principle to?

  Prayer: Lord, thank you that you love me continually, even though I constantly set my heart on other things and love them more than you. Help me to see this for what it is—spiritual adultery—and thank you for loving me despite it. Amen.

  May 8

  Spirit-generated selflessness . . . [is] taking your mind off yourself and realizing that in Christ your needs are going to be met . . . that you don’t look at your spouse as your savior . . . [and] when [you] do that, [you] will discover sometimes an immediate sense of liberation, of waking up from a troubling dream. [You] see how small-minded [you] were being, how small the issue is in light of the grand scheme of things. Those who stop concentrating on how unhappy they are find that their happiness is growing. (Hardcover, pp. 66–67; paperback, pp. 66–67)

  TWO CONCEPTS OF HAPPINESS. The Greek word eudaimonia (literally “good spirit”) is usually translated as “happiness.” But scholars tell us it would be better to translate it as “flourishing” because the ancients conceived of happiness in a different way than we do. Happiness was not seen as doing anything you wanted, but as conforming your life to the nature of reality, just as a trout is only “happy” when it is in water rather than in the air, or a robin is only “happy” when it is in the air and not underwater. The “happiness” of marriage only comes to us as we serve. In a review of the final Marvel movie, Avengers: Endgame, one of the screenwriters said that the ability to sacrifice for duty is the real heroism, not the superpowers.61

  Reflection: What superpower would you most like to have? What sacrifices do you most need to make to be a hero in your marriage?

  Thought for Prayer: Think of the ways that difficulties in your marriage have led to greater happiness. Then thank God for them.

  May 9

  What is it that most motivates and moves you? Is it the desire for success? The pursuit of some achievement? The need to prove yourself to your parents? The need for respect from your peers? Are you largely driven by anger against someone or some people who have wronged you? Paul says that if any of these things are greater controlling influences on you than the reality of God’s love for you, you will not be in a position to serve others unselfishly. (Hardcover, p. 68; paperback, p. 68)

  A NEW START. An adopted child leaves behind old ways of thinking and behavior to become a member of a new family. Having been adopted into God’s family, we must leave our old baggage at the door of our new home in Christ. Our older preferences, hopes, dreams, fears, and hates must be left behind. We should walk in empty-handed, trusting that what God has for us is better than anything we had abandoned. C. S. Lewis famously said that we are like children playing in our familiar mud puddles when a holiday at the shore has been offered to us. We like what we know, and don’t trust what we have never seen, but only God can offer us eternal, solid joy.

  Reflection: What baggage have you dragged into your marriage that you thought would make you happy, but which is actually a source of unhappiness? Both of you think of an answer, and then discuss.

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on 2 Corinthians 5:17—that in Christ we are a new creation, the old having passed away. Ask God to show you what older patterns of thinking, feeling, and behavior you may be clinging to, and the harm they may be doing to your marriage.

  May 10

  [I]t was wrong of her to seek to self-worth throug
h male affection. . . . But now she was being asked to look to her career and personal independence as a way to feel good about herself. . . . And so she said, . . . “Would I not be as devastated then by career setbacks as I have been by romantic ones? No. I will rest in the righteousness of Christ. . . . Then I can look at males or career and say, ‘What makes me beautiful to God is Jesus, not these things.’” (Hardover, pp. 69–70; paperback, p. 70)

  SELF-TALK. One of the secrets of self-control is to realize that your emotions are not so much responses to events as they are created by what you tell yourself about the event. If someone you are dating drops you and you say to yourself, “I must be undesirable,” your emotion is sadness; but if your self-talk is “They have no right to do that!” the same incident will produce anger instead. Teach yourself godly self-talk. The psalmist speaks to his own heart again and again: “Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not his benefits” (Psalm 103:2).62 If we don’t talk to our hearts, telling them God’s truth, our hearts will surely keep calling us like robo-scammers, telling us there’s no hope. Learn to value what God values by learning to understand his Word and by deep communion with him in prayer.

  Reflection: Do you pray together? Share insights with one another from your Bible study? Why or why not?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Mark 1:35 and its context, in which Jesus, at the height of his ministry and intense demands on his time, rises early to spend time in prayer. Consider how the Son of God did not think he could get through a day without prayer. Now pray to God about your prayer life, whatever its condition.

  May 11

  But each of us comes to marriage with a disordered inner being. Many of us have sought to overcome self-doubts by giving ourselves to our careers. That will mean we will choose our work over our spouse and family to the detriment of our marriage. Others of us hope that unending affection and affirmation from a beautiful, brilliant romantic partner will finally make us feel good about ourselves. That turns the relationship into a form of salvation and no relationship can live up to that. (Hardcover, p. 72; paperback, p. 73)

  EVERYONE WORSHIPS. Alexander Schmemann wrote that even the most atheistic people are nonetheless homo adorans—worshipping beings.63 We must adore, center our lives, and base our meaning and worth on something. In David Foster Wallace’s famous address, he makes the same point, saying “if you worship money and things . . . if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough.” He includes sexual beauty, power, and artistic and intellectual achievement as other inadequate objectives of worship. Our culture says “live your own truth,” but these replacement gods “will eat you alive.” He ends: “The really important kind of freedom involves . . . being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day. That is real freedom.”64 Right. Only worshipping the real God can give you that.

  Reflection: We have been saying that we can’t look to our marriage to give us what only God can give. But we won’t have a good marriage if either spouse is looking to any other god-substitute either. Talk with each other about what things in this world can become god-substitutes for you.

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on 1 John 5:21 and ask God to keep your heart from resting in idols.

  May 12

  Only God can fill a God-sized hole. Until God has the proper place in my life, I will always be complaining that my spouse is not loving me well enough, not respecting me enough, not supporting me enough. (Hardcover, pp. 72–73; paperback, p. 73)

  REORDERED LOVES. St. Augustine defined sin as “disordered love.” The sin of cowardice is loving your own safety more than the good of someone else. Lying is loving your reputation or advantage over the good and right of others to the truth. If I love my career more than my family I will hurt or even lose my family. But the ultimate problem is that we love anything more than God. If I love my spouse more than God, then I look to him or her to provide the kind of steady, perfect, unconditional love only God can give. If I don’t love God more than her, I don’t love her for her sake. I’m using her to meet my needs and so it is mainly for my sake. There is only one solution. Do everything you can to provide “access to your hearts for the love of Him who is greater than the world.”65

  Reflection: Do some self-examination. Are any of your loves “out of order”? Think of the saying “The good is the enemy of the best.” Are there any good things that you love too much in comparison to other things?

  Thought for prayer: Consider the ways that the Lord is “greater than the world” and then ask him to convince your heart, not just your head, that this is so.

  May 13

  What . . . would the effect be if we were to go so deeply into Jesus’s . . . promises and summonses, his counsels and encouragements, over time, that they just dominated our inner life, capturing our imagination? . . . When you received criticism, you would never be crushed, because Jesus’s love and acceptance of you is so deeply “in there.” When you give criticism, you are gentle and patient, because your whole inner world is saturated by a sense of Jesus’s loving patience and gentleness with you. (Hardcover, p. 74; paperback, p. 75)

  A KEY TO CHANGE. Christians are told if they knew God’s grace and love sufficiently they would be liberated to forgive, love, change, and grow. But how do you do that? The answer is that Jesus must “capture our imaginations.” Think of how that happens with a book, or music, or a movie that captivates us. We go back to it again and again to savor it. We think about it, or hum it, or relive it as we are walking about. We also get others in on it. To watch a beloved movie with someone who has never seen it is to discover it again. Now take the Gospels about Jesus and fall in love with him. The tools are private and corporate prayer, Bible reading, and praise.

  Reflection: Get specific. How can Jesus capture your imagination so his love saturates your interior world? What can you do practically in the areas of prayer and reading that will help?

  Thought for prayer: Ask: “Lord Jesus, make thyself to me a living bright reality.”66

  May 14

  It is possible to feel you are “madly in love” with someone, when it is really just an attraction to someone who can meet your needs and address the insecurities and doubts you have about yourself. In that kind of relationship you will demand and control rather than serve and give. The only way to avoid constantly sacrificing your partner’s joy and freedom on the altar of your need is to turn to the ultimate Lover of your soul . . . [who] voluntarily sacrificed himself on the cross. (Hardcover, pp. 75–76; paperback, p. 77)

  DISORDERED LOVES. Of course both spouses are to meet one another’s needs. But what are the signs that you are mainly using a person to affirm you and overcome your doubts about yourself rather than loving and serving the person’s good? One bad sign is that you will not allow the person to have bad days or get down or discouraged. You need the person to be fine and pulled together so he or she can be attentive to you and not require too much unrequited affection from you. Another sign is that you either get too devastated by your spouse’s criticism or else respond with such hostility that he or she takes it all back. Why? Because you need your spouse’s constant praise and affirmation so much you can’t bear their critique.

  Reflection: Do you see these signs in your relationship to your spouse? If they are there, how strong are they?

  Thought for prayer: Ask Christ to capture your imagination and heart (see yesterday’s devotional) with his sacrificial love for you.

  May 15

  [When she said,] “Why do we need a piece of paper in order to love one another? I don’t need a piece of paper to love you! It only complicates things.” . . . She was assuming that love is, in its essence, a particular kind of feeling. She was saying, “I feel romantic passion for you, and the piece of paper doesn’t enhance that at all, and it may hurt it.” (Hardcover, p. 77; paperback, pp. 79–80)<
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  FEELING AND ACTION. It is simplistic to say that love is an action and not a feeling at all. We shouldn’t set those two things against each other. There must be deep affection and attraction in a marriage if it is to succeed. Nevertheless, parents know that love means meeting their children’s needs even when they don’t feel much affection at all for (what seem to be) the ungrateful little villains. So the essence or foundation of love is committed service to the good of someone, whether you feel like it or not. Arguably, it is a greater act of love to do things for someone when you don’t particularly like them. And that is why the marriage vow is not to feel loving but to be loving, no matter what.

  Reflection: Why have some said that the marriage license might hurt love rather than enhance it? What understanding of love does that reveal?

  Thought for prayer: Thank the Lord that—when he was on the Cross and he saw us denying, betraying, mocking, and abandoning him—he stayed. Thank him for that kind of love.

  May 16

  [W]hen the Bible speaks of love, it primarily measures it not by how much you want to receive, but by how much you are willing to give of yourself to someone. How much are you willing to lose for the sake of this person? How much of your freedom are you willing to forsake? How much of your precious time, emotion, and resources are you willing to invest in this person? And for that, the marriage vow is not just helpful but it is even a test. (Hardcover, p. 78; paperback, p. 80)