The Meaning of Marriage: A Couple's Devotional

by Timothy Keller

  September 26

  What does it take to know the power of grace? First it takes humility. If you have trouble forgiving someone, it is at least partly because deep in your heart you are thinking, “I would never do anything like that!” As long as you feel superior to someone, feel like you are a much better kind of person, you will find it very hard if not impossible to forgive . . . [so] truth will eat up love. (Hardcover, p. 165; paperback, p. 184)

  FORGIVING. How do you forgive someone? First, forgive your spouse in your heart even before you talk to them (Mark 11:25). That way you avoid what we have discussed—using the truth to pay back rather than to lovingly correct. Second, go and say what was done wrong, but be open to the possibility that you aren’t seeing things clearly. Say something like: “It looks to me like you did this ______ and it affected me like this ______. Correct me if I’m wrong.” Attack the problem, not the person. If your spouse apologizes, express forgiveness; if not, keep talking. Finally, remember that forgiveness is granted before it’s felt. Forgiveness is a promise not to keep bringing up the past to your spouse, to others, or to yourself.

  Reflection: When was the last time you confronted and offered forgiveness to your spouse? Look at the list above and evaluate how well you did this.

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Colossians 3:12–13. Confess your lack of “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” in light of how “the Lord forgave you.” Ask for a forgiving heart.

  September 27

  But speaking the truth in love requires . . . also “emotional wealth,” a fundamental inner joy and confidence. If you are very down on yourself . . . then it may be far too important for you to have your spouse always pleased with you. You will not be able . . . to criticize your spouse or [receive criticism]. . . . You will stay resentful but will hide it. . . . In this case, we have love eating up truth. (Hardcover, pp.165–66; paperback, p. 184)

  THE GOSPEL AND FORGIVENESS. The experience of the gospel gives us the two prerequisites for a life of forgiveness: First, it provides emotional humility. Those who won’t forgive show they have not accepted the fact of their own sinfulness. To remain unforgiving means you remain unaware of your own need for forgiveness. Second, it provides emotional wealth. You can’t be gracious to someone if you are too needy and insecure. If you know God’s love and forgiveness, then there is a limit to how deeply another person can hurt you. He or she can’t touch your real identity, wealth, and significance. The more we rejoice in our own forgiveness, the quicker we will be to forgive others. No heart that is truly repentant toward God can be unforgiving toward others.

  Reflection: Which of the two requirements for forgiveness do you lack most often?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Psalm 130:4: “with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared.” God’s free grace for us should lead us to awe and wonder (“fear”) before him. Think about that until you can praise him for his forgiveness from the heart.

  September 28

  We are so evil and sinful and flawed that Jesus had to die for us. . . . But we are so loved and valued that he was glad to die for us. The Lord of the universe loved us enough to do that! So the gospel humbles us into the dust and at the very same time exalts us to the heavens. We are sinners, but completely loved and accepted in Christ at the same time. . . . [This] gives you both the emotional humility and wealth to exercise the power of grace. (Hardcover, pp. 166–67; paperback, pp. 185–86)

  THE CROSS AND FORGIVENESS. On the cross Jesus fulfilled the law and justice’s demands and procured mercy and forgiveness for us at the same time. We, too, are also required to forgive in a way that honors both justice and truth. “Christians are called to abandon bitterness, to be forbearing, to have a forgiving stance even where the repentance of the offending party is conspicuous by its absence; on the other hand, their God-centered passion for justice, their concern for God’s glory, ensure that the awful odium of sin is not glossed over.”112 Love, but speak the truth. Speak the truth, but always in love. That’s how to show grace to your spouse.

  Reflection: Did your upbringing teach and support this idea of forgiveness and repentance? In what ways does your family background help you? Hinder you?

  Thought for prayer: Today think first of how your family background has either oriented you toward moralism or toward relativism in viewpoint. If there are any ways in which your past shackles you, ask God to break them and free you for truth and love.

  September 29

  [U]nder the influence of the curse in Genesis, every human culture has found a way to interpret male headship in a way that has marginalized and oppressed women, and it’s usually the women who notice, and object, to this treatment first. (Hardcover, p. 170; paperback, p. 191)

  INTRODUCING “HEADSHIP.” With tremendous ingenuity and creativity, sin has found ways in every time and place to twist the headship of men, prescribed in the Bible (Ephesians 5:23) and intended for good, into culturally approved ways to push women to the margins, rather than partnering together for the health of the family, the church, and the world. In order to nourish our God-starved sense of self, we oppress and exploit those who cannot resist. Instead of deploying strength and power to nurture and protect, as Jesus did, we “lord it over” others for our own comfort and benefit. We see men doing this to women and read that back into the term “head” in the Bible and reject the whole idea. We should not do this.

  Reflection: Would both you and your spouse say that you are partners in the marriage and in the shared life to which God has called you? If not, which of you feels unappreciated or underutilized?

  Thought for prayer: In each other’s presence pray for your ability as a couple to hear the biblical teaching amid the cacophony of cultural voices around this subject.

  September 30

  There’s no denying that the subject of gender roles in marriage is a contentious and controversial one. . . . I have seen Bible verses used as weapons of both oppression and rebellion. I have also seen the healing and flourishing that can happen in a marriage when hot-button words like “headship” and “submission” are understood correctly, with Jesus as the model for both. (Hardcover, p. 171; paperback, p. 192)

  SUBMISSION. In these times, one can almost provoke a riot by using the words “headship” and “submission.” To many they mean oppression from men and willing subservience from women. This stems in part from a lack of understanding of the headship/submission dynamic in the ministry of Jesus. Also, some of it is willful misconstruction in the service of political agendas. Further, bad experiences with authority lead us to the conclusion that it is bad in all its forms. In Matthew 20:26–28 Jesus explained to his disciples that authority is to be used to serve, not to “lord it over” others, something Paul elaborated on in Ephesians 5:22–33. We see Jesus as the husband who sacrifices everything to bring his bride to perfection (verse 25).

  Reflection: Husbands, ask your wives if your exercise of headship makes them feel secure, loved, and cared for, or bullied and oppressed. Pray first to be able to receive the answer with grace, whether it is offered lovingly or not. Wives, are you ready to imitate Jesus, who set aside his glory as a gift to his Father in the accomplishment of our salvation (and then was glorified even further as a result)?

  Thought for prayer: Pray that the pride and fear in both of your hearts would be suppressed by God’s Spirit, so that headship and submission in your marriage would be life-giving and not painful.

  October 1

  Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. (1 Corinthians 7:1–2)

  CELIBACY. The Bible everywhere assumes that if they are not married, Christians must be celibate (see October 4). Yet some in Corinth taught that the ideal was for Chr
istians not to have sex at all.113 This view, however, was based on a view of the body as inferior to the soul or spirit. That belief can lead to indiscriminate sexual activity, since what you do with the body would be spiritually inconsequential (see September 1). But it could also lead to seeing bodily pleasure as sinful in itself and something to be avoided.114 Paul did not see singleness and celibacy as an inferior life, but he would not teach it was the ideal either. Both of these views rejected the Christian sexual revolution, which saw sex not as just an appetite but something of cosmic significance.

  Reflection: Which of these views—that sex is somewhat dirty, or that it is “no big deal”—has had an influence on you in the past? How might it be affecting your marriage?

  Prayer: Lord, I thank you for the wisdom of your Word, especially as it tells me about the purpose of your gift of sex. Its lofty vision keeps us from being either afraid of sex or addicted to it. Shape my mind and heart by this biblical wisdom about sexuality. Amen.

  October 2

  The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. (1 Corinthians 7:3–5)

  THE BIRTH OF CONSENT. In ancient times wives could not commit adultery, but husbands were free to have sex with others, and especially with women of lower social rank who had little choice in the matter. Paul condemned the double standard—adultery was equally a sin for the husband and wife—but he went far beyond that. He said that both husband and wife have “authority” over the other person’s body; even in marriage sex had to be a matter of mutual agreement. The modern idea that sex must be consensual came from Christianity.115 But Paul, by insisting that sex also be always within marriage, argued that it had to be superconsensual. Both the Christian ethic for sex and its high vision for sex were exponentially better for women. Arguably, in the midst of today’s hookup culture, it still is.

  Reflection: Think of the thesis that the Christian ethic for sex and its underlying vision for sex’s cosmic significance is better for women. Is that true? How?

  Prayer: Lord, I thank you for the health that comes into our world through your Word, even if it only reaches our world partially. And let this loving consent be the principle in our marriage. Don’t let one of us bully the other with regard to sex or to anything at all. Amen.

  October 3

  The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. (1 Corinthians 7:4)

  NO CONSENT TO “GHOST.” In The New York Times a woman described having sex with a boyfriend, but afterward, when she texted the man, he wouldn’t answer—he “ghosted.” She told her roommates, “[H]e asked for my consent, over and over. So sex felt like a sacred act, and then he disappeared.” They laughed at her, but she argued: “[C]onsent doesn’t work if we relegate it exclusively to the sexual realm. Our bodies are only one part of the complex constellation of who we are.” She was experiencing the biblical truth that giving our bodies without giving our whole lives fails to recognize that the physical is an integrated part of one’s self. If we forget this it is dehumanizing. “I don’t think many of us would say yes to the question “Is it O.K. if I act like I care about you and then disappear?”116 Sex must be superconsensual.

  Reflection: Even in sex within marriage, it is possible at a particular moment to give your body but not your mind and heart. Consider how important it is to give your whole self when you have sex.

  Prayer: Lord, I never thought I’d be in prayer thanking you for the sex act—but I am! It is a way we can give ourselves wholly to each other in the most powerful possible way. Help us to use it as such. Amen.

  October 4

  I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. (1 Corinthians 7:6–9)

  PREMARITAL SEX. People often ask, “Where is there a verse that says it’s wrong to have sex before marriage?” The answer is twofold. First, the Greek word porneia (translated “sexual immorality”) means, specifically, any sex outside marriage between a man and a woman (see September 6). But second, the Bible everywhere assumes that sex outside of marriage is wrong, even when it is not stated directly. For example, here Paul says that if unmarried people “cannot control themselves” they should marry rather than going around “burning with passion.” In other words, Paul simply assumes that a single person will be celibate. The number of biblical texts forbidding porneia or sex outside of marriage is remarkable.117

  Reflection: Imagine someone said to you, “I know that it’s a sin to commit adultery, but where does it say that you can’t have sex before marriage—if you are both unmarried—as long as you love each other?” On the basis of what you have learned in this devotional this year, what would your answer be?

  Prayer: Lord, you are a covenant God, because you love us enough to bind yourself to us and us to you. Renew us in your image, so that more and more our love becomes self-giving. Amen.

  October 5

  I think that it is good for a man to remain as he is. Are you pledged to a woman? Do not seek to be released. Are you free from such a commitment? Do not look for a wife. But if you do marry, you have not sinned. . . . But those who marry will face many troubles in this life, and I want to spare you this. (1 Corinthians 7:26–28)

  MARRIAGE AND THE KINGDOM. Christianity was perhaps the first religion or worldview that held up single adulthood to be a viable adult life.118 Society recognized no long-term economic security apart from children. And who would remember your name and your legacy? But Paul pressured no one to marry and even made financial provision for widows so they did not have to marry unless they wanted to (1 Timothy 5). Why? “The ‘sacrifice’ made by singles was not . . . ‘giving up sex’ but in giving up heirs. . . . This was a clear [sign to the world] that one’s future is not guaranteed by the family, but by [the kingdom of God].”119 Christians choose to marry—or not—not on the basis of personal fulfillment, but on which way we can best serve as a sign of the kingdom to the world.

  Reflection: When you married did you think at all about how, together, you could better be a sign of the kingdom to the world? Think more about it now with each other.

  Prayer: Lord, many of our friends who don’t believe in you think we were crazy to get married. Let the quality of our marriage impress them in such a way that they don’t simply credit us but they become more interested in your Word and grace. Amen.

  October 6

  What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away. (1 Corinthians 7:29–31)

  THE TIME IS SHORT. Behind the phrase “the time is short” is a sophisticated view of history. The kingdom of God—the spiritual power to renew the world—is here to a substantial degree, but only partially (Romans 13:11–14). It means we should not be too elated by success or too cast down by disappointment—because our true success is in God (Colossians 3:1–4). Though we have possessions, we should live as if they weren’t really ours—for our real wealth is in God (Luke 16:1ff.). We should “sit loose” to everything. Paul says we should be neither overelated by getting m
arried nor overdisappointed by not being so, because Christ is the only spouse who can truly fulfill us and God’s family the only family that will truly embrace and satisfy us (Ephesians 5:21ff.).

  Reflection: Take this principle and apply it to other parts of your life. Can you refuse to tie your joy too much to your career? How? What about the success of your children?

  Prayer: Lord, sometimes you “break our schemes of earthly joy” so that we can “find our all in you.”120 Help us—without needing trials and disappointments—to rest our hearts so much in you that we have an abiding peace in the world. Amen.

  October 7

  A woman is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to marry anyone she wishes, but he must belong to the Lord. (1 Corinthians 7:39)

  MARRYING “IN THE LORD.” The biblical directive that a Christian must marry another believer is seen by some as mere prejudice, like saying you must marry someone of the same race or class. But in the context of this chapter, we see the reasons. The Bible forbids you to wittingly marry someone who doesn’t share your faith. Because one of the main purposes of marriage is to build kingdom-exhibiting community—to show the world how Christ transforms everything, including marriage. You can’t do that if both spouses aren’t believers. A Christian who deliberately marries a nonbeliever shows that his or her motive is not mission or kingdom-exhibition. One of the main ways that married Christians witness to Christ is to show the difference Christ makes in marriage.