The Meaning of Marriage: A Couple's Devotional

by Timothy Keller

  NOT A DEPRIVATION. If you are single, or if you want to be good brothers and sisters to Christian single adults, I know of no better place to direct your thoughts than to Paige Benton’s article, “Singled Out for Good,” the article from which the quote above was taken.132 Whether our life circumstances are of singleness or marriage, sickness or health, happiness or grief, they all give us an opportunity to bear witness to God’s wisdom and his love by serving him gladly where we find ourselves, rather than thinking we could serve him so much better if only he would change things. Singleness is no deprivation, and all of us in the Christian community must understand that if we are to be brothers and sisters together in each local church family.

  Reflection: Do you think that God has been unloving to you in designing the circumstances of your present life? What consolation is it to you that you can glorify him in those circumstances? Or that the fullness of God’s glory awaits you?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Genesis 50:20, in which Joseph says that all the circumstances of his life, even those that his brothers designed for his harm, were places in which Joseph was able to serve God. Pray for this same mindset of patient, gracious acceptance of circumstances.

  November 23

  Ephesians 5 tells us that marriage is not ultimately about sex or social stability or personal fulfillment. Marriage was created to be a reflection on the human level of our ultimate love relationship and union with the Lord. It is a sign and foretaste of the future kingdom of God. But this high view of marriage tells us, then, that marriage is penultimate. It points us to the Real Marriage that our souls need and the Real Family our hearts were made for. (Hardcover, p. 198; paperback, p. 226)

  IMAGES OF GOD EVERYWHERE. Only human beings are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26–27) and yet all sorts of things in his creation “tell of him,” reflecting something of his glory (Psalm 19:1). God made sure that there were sheep, shepherds, sons, gates, bread, and Brides and Bridegrooms—all things he would use to tell us things about himself and his relationship to us. This is not us “anthropomorphizing” God, but rather God filling his world with types and signs and allegories that would teach us about our Creator and Redeemer. The book of Revelation ends with the presentation of the Bride, pure and spotless, God’s people joined to him forever. Our earthly marriages are meant to give us (and the world) a hint and a taste of what that eternal union will be like.

  Reflection: Does your marriage give you and those who see you a foretaste of the heavenly marriage?

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Psalm 119:64. Thank God for a world filled with his love, with signs and images of his saving grace and care for us. Ask him to remind you of him during the day, so that your daily life can be lived out against a background of constant, quiet, grateful praise.

  November 24

  Married couples will do a bad job of conducting their marriage if they don’t see this penultimate status. Even the best marriage cannot by itself fill the void in our souls left by God. Without a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Christ now, and hope in a perfect love relationship with him in the future, married Christians will put too much pressure on their marriage to fulfill them, and that will always create pathology in their lives. (Hardcover, p. 198; paperback, p. 226)

  WAYS TO CRUSH. We have been saying that no human being can ever provide you with the love you need and that only God can give. To look for it in a person is to crush them—but how? One way is that we can’t allow them to have times of difficulty in which they are understandably somewhat self-absorbed and not as attentive to your needs. Chronic illness is an example. Another way we crush them is because we cannot bear their displeasure at all, so we fail to lovingly critique them. A third way is that we overcorrect them, because we need them to have a practically perfect life. Only if filled with a sense of God’s love for you can you risk relationships with imperfect people (and there are no other kind!).

  Reflection: Assess whether you have put pressure on each other in any of these three ways, to any degree at all. Forgive and talk about how to improve.

  Thought for prayer: Meditate on Ephesians 3:17–19. Ask God to help you not just know about his love but to know it.

  November 25

  If single Christians . . . develop a deeply fulfilling love relationship with Jesus, they will . . . be able to handle single life without a devastating sense of being unfulfilled and unformed. And they might as well tackle this spiritual project right away. Why? Because the same idolatry of marriage that is distorting their single lives will eventually distort their married lives if they find a partner. So there’s no reason to wait. Demote marriage and family in your heart, put God first, and begin to enjoy the goodness of single life. (Hardcover, p. 198; paperback, pp. 226–27)

  LONELINESS WITHIN MARRIAGE. There are many possible reasons that you may feel very alone even if you are married, so many that we can’t even list them in this short devotional. But here is one not usually noticed. The same prioritizing of God’s love over all human loves is necessary both for married people and singles. Otherwise single people might approach marriage thinking something like, “Finally, this is going to heal me of all my problems and sadness.” You have no idea of how lonely you can be in a marriage that is not what you expected it to be—nor can it be. Reorder your hopes for happiness so that they rest on Jesus or, whether inside or outside of marriage, you will never be ready for it.

  Reflection: How can a person become a dispenser of God’s love, rather than a needy person who needs constant human validation? How can you?

  Thought for prayer: Ask God to keep you from either expecting too much out of marriage, forgetting its limits; or too little from marriage, forgetting its cosmic significance.

  November 26

  How can we claim that long-term singleness is a good condition in light of the . . . argument that males and females are in some ways “incomplete” without the other? The answer is the same. It has to do, again, with our hope in Christ and our experience of Christian community. Just as Christian singles find their “heirs” and family within the church, so do brothers find their sisters and sisters find their brothers. (Hardcover, p. 199; paperback, p. 227)

  INTIMATE COMMUNITY. First Timothy 5: 1–2 exhorts us to treat Christians as family, as brothers and sisters. That means to look for the same kind of support and friendship you would expect from a good biological sibling, but with spiritual understanding and support added in. As evidence that he wants our relationships with believers to be extremely intimate, Paul adds “in all purity” (cf. 1 Thessalonians 4:1–8). Our hearts are deceitful and we must be on guard, but this little phrase is testimony to how wonderfully close our friendships in Christ can be. One safeguard is to remember our brother-sister relationships should always be in community, and not isolated and exclusive.

  Reflection: We are commanded to treat one another as brothers and sisters, knowing the pitfalls that sin can introduce into those relationships. How can you obey God’s command, reap the rewards of supportive relationships, and still remain pure?

  Thought for prayer: Spend a moment thinking of two Christian brothers or sisters who have been a major help and influence on you. Now thank God for them and ask him to turn you into the same kind of friend, not only to your spouse, but to others.

  November 27

  Gospel beliefs and experience create a bond between Christians that is stronger than any . . . blood relationship, or racial and national identity (Ephesians 2; 1 Peter 2:9–10). . . . I love my biological siblings, my neighbors, and the other members of my ethnic or racial group, yet we no longer share in common our deepest instincts and beliefs about reality. . . . This means that single people within a strong Christian community can experience much of the unique enrichment of cross-gender relationships within a family, particularly the sibling relationships between brothers and sisters. (Hardcover, pp. 199–200; paperback, pp. 227–28)<
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  “COMPLETION” IN COMMUNITY. Christians talk loudly about how marriage to another gender “completes” us, and how our spouses are our better halves. This implies that unmarried people are incomplete half persons. However, while Genesis 1 and 2 do indicate that men and women reflect God’s glory together, and that both have unique glories and strengths that the other gender does not, marriage is not the only way for the genders to help and complete each other. Because the church is a family—and because our bond in Christ is deeper than any biological, racial, or cultural tie—singles in a good church can know the “unique enrichment” (see above) of cross-gender relationships in a family.

  Reflection: Did you have good sibling relationships? Do you have sibling relationships within the church? Have you ever had difficulties to overcome? What were they and how was God’s grace brought into that relationship?

  Thought for prayer: Thank God for the ways in which you and your spouse help and complete each other as man and woman, and ask the Lord for opportunities to establish strong family ties within your church, so that corporately you can complete each other as men and women.

  November 28

  [Christian marriage] . . . forces you over the years to learn how a person of the other sex habitually looks at and reacts to people and situations. . . . [C]all this “cross-gender enrichment.” . . . But . . . in a strong Christian community, where the sharing of our hearts and lives goes beyond the superficial down to what God is teaching us and how he is forming and growing us . . . in . . . mutual “one-another” ministry, a kind of cross-gender enrichment happens naturally. (Hardcover, pp. 200–201; paperback, pp. 229–30)

  DIFFERENT DIFFERING GIFTS. The Bible tells us that Christians have differing gifts—no one can do everything well (1 Corinthians 12:4–7). But churches often fail to recognize that a man and a woman who share the same gift will exercise it somewhat differently, with diverse insights often reaching and helping different persons. So often we need both men and women doing the same ministry in partnership side by side. Since we all have one Creator who made us, male and female, in his image, it would be wrong to neglect the gifts he has given to men and women to strengthen his Body. We must honor one another as we each inhabit the roles he has given us in which to exercise our gifts.

  Reflection: Men, do you honor the gifts that women bring to a meeting, a conversation, or a task? Women, do you honor the gifts that men bring to a situation? How could you do better?

  Thought for prayer: Take time to think about at least one man and one woman who ministered to you in different but profound ways. Thank God for them both, and ask God to help your church fully use the gifts of men and women together.

  November 29

  Of course it is less intense than in marriage. And yet the more corporate experience is not a “poor second” to marriage, since in marriage you are put together with just one member of the opposite gender, which does and should limit the extent of friendships with others of the opposite sex. In Christian community . . . singles can have a greater range of friendships among both sexes. (Hardcover, p. 201; paperback, p. 230)

  ORGANIC COMMUNITY. If the church is to be our truest family we must recognize that it is not just an organization, but an organism, a Body. In a body every part supports the other, and every part feels the others’ pain. (Have you ever noticed that when you hurt your toe or finger, suddenly it becomes the center of attention?) Your church is becoming an organic community when it is the best possible place to be when you are going through a time of suffering. If you are hurting, are you noticed? Cared for? Nuclear families—and singles—are often going through too much pain to make it without help from God’s family.

  Reflection: The point of these recent devotionals is to see the “penultimacy” of marriage; that being married does not furnish you with all you need and you must be a part of God’s family. Have you been convinced of this? If you have, what does that mean concretely for you in your marriage?

  Thought for prayer: Ask God to pour out his Spirit on your church and churches in general, so they might truly become the family of God.

  November 30

  Unlike traditional societies, Christianity sees singleness as good because the kingdom of God provides the most lasting possible legacy and heirs. Unlike sex-and-romance-saturated Western society, Christians see singleness as good because our union with Christ can fulfill our deepest longings. And yet, unlike our commitment-averse, postmodern society, Christianity does not fear or avoid marriage either. Adults in Western society are deeply shaped by individualism, a fear and even hatred of limiting options for the sake of others. (Hardcover, p. 201; paperback, p. 230)

  BEING FRIENDS. I have known women and men who can’t commit to marrying someone they really love because of FOMO (fear of missing out). They hesitate just in case a better prospect comes along. Married people should be good friends to singles by neither pushing them toward marriage nor allowing them to acquiesce in such a consumerist attitude. Singles in turn have much to offer married friends. They may direct married people, too often absorbed in family maintenance, to what is happening in the wider world. From our differing vantage points we all come to know an aspect of the goodness of God that no one else has ever seen, and in heaven we will never tire of telling one another of his goodness to us.

  Reflection: Think of how your friends who are married and friends who are single enrich your life in different ways. What are those ways? Do you need to add more of one kind of friend to your relationships?

  Thought for prayer: Ask God to increase in you the candor, wisdom, willingness to be vulnerable, and willingness to dedicate time—all the things that it takes to be a good friend.

  December 1

  [He:] You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride; you have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. (Song of Solomon 4:9)

  UNION. Here in the Song of Solomon, for the first time the woman is called “my bride,” and so the lovers have at last been married. However, she is not only called bride but “my sister.” In ancient times “the relationship . . . between a brother and a sister was the closest bond of friendship . . . possible with a person of the opposite gender.”133 This is one more biblical way to say “sexual union was never intended to exist by itself.” It should be part of a complete union of body and soul that includes “mutual care, respect, and self-giving to each other in every area of life.”134 Sex is meant to make you one flesh and to knit you to each other as completely as an arm is knit to a body.

  Reflection: What does the Bible tell us when it says your spouse should not only be a lover and friend, but like a sibling? What does that add to our understanding of marriage?

  Prayer: Lord, thank you for giving us in marriage the closest possible relationship two human beings can have in this life. Console us both with each other, healing as much as possible the loneliness that afflicts us all spiritually. Thank you for my lover, friend, and sister (or brother) in Christ. Amen.

  December 2

  [He:] How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride! How much more pleasing is your love than wine, and the fragrance of your perfume more than any spice! (Song of Solomon 4:10)

  MATURE WINE. In the intervening chapters the man likened the woman’s body to a vineyard in blossom (1:6; 2:13), and now he speaks of their sexual consummation as the best wine. The extended metaphor is instructive. You don’t harvest a vineyard when it is in bloom but rather when its fruit is completely ripe.135 Until your love has brought you to full, thoughtful willingness to commit your whole life to the other in marriage, the wine of your relationship is not yet mature. “Now on their wedding day, the couple’s love is fully mature, like a fine wine, ready to be consummated.”136 Again we see the Bible’s insistence that sexuality be integrated with all the rest of one’s life in self-giving, rather than isolated as a consumer good to be partaken at one’s leisure. />
  Reflection: What does this image—of love as mature, fine wine—teach us about marriage?

  Prayer: Lord, your goal for me is that I become “fully mature in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). I also want that for our marital love. Enrich our love with wisdom and discernment, with mercy and grace, and with to-the-death commitment so that we can rejoice in the gift of each other and in you, the Giver. Amen.

  December 3

  [He:] How beautiful you are and how pleasing, my love, with your delights! Your stature is like that of the palm, and your breasts like clusters of fruit. I said, “I will climb the palm tree; I will take hold of its fruit. May your breasts be like clusters of grapes on the vine.” (Song of Solomon 7:6–8)

  DELIGHT IN THE BODY. In the first three chapters of the Song of Solomon the lovers pursue and long for each another, yet there is a repeated exhortation to self-control, to “not arouse or awaken love until it pleases” (2:7, 3:5). Finally comes the wedding in chapter 4. Now the man takes hold of his wife’s breasts in sexual embrace. No longer is he merely admiring them—now he will partake. “God invented our bodies and delights in them, and would have us do the same.”137 The Bible is subversive to both hedonism and asceticism. In it we see a bare-faced rejoicing in sexual beauty and pleasure—no prudishness here. And yet, as we have seen, the man and woman have waited on sex until their love has made them capable of whole-life investment in each other.