Category: Family/Single Life

Gospel Shaped Marriage

On By BrianIn Family/Single Life

Our culture has a low distorted view of marriage.  This is not news.   The high divorce rate, the thousands living together outside of marriage, the media’s portrayal of marriage, the attempt to redefine marriage, and the frothy romantic feelings many base marriage on – all point to a low distorted view of marriage.  In the midst of this mess, the church needs a renewed vision of marriage, a high view, a real view, a Biblical view.

To find such a view, we could turn back to creation.  We could see that God designed marriage between a man and a woman, that he designed sex for the safety of a loving committed marriage relationship, and that he designed marriage to be a lasting commitment.  But by and large the church knows these things, so I want to look at marriage from a different vantage point.  I want to consider marriage not in the context of creation, but in the context of salvation.

I want to ask: how should the gospel shape our marriages?  Ever asked that question?  Ever even consider that there might be a connection?  Let’s begin by exploring the connection:

Read Ephesians 5:22-33.  What is this passage about?  The marriage relationship?  The Christ/church relationship?  Both?  Indeed both.  Paul weaves the two together throughout the passage.

Looking closer, we notice that the husband’s role is based on Christ’s role: “the husband is the head…even as Christ is the head….husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church.”  Similarly the wife’s role is based on the church’s role: “as the church submits…so also wives should submit.”  The marriage relationship then is based on the Christ/church relationship.

Look at verses 31-32.  Verse 31 quotes Genesis 2 which is speaking of marriage.  Yet verse 32 says it (the marriage relationship) refers to Christ and the church.  That is, the marriage relationship points to or pictures the Christ/church relationship.  Our marriages are a picture of Christ and his church.  Marriage is a picture of the gospel.

So marriage is based on the Christ/church relationship and pictures the Christ/church relationship.*  Marriage is closely connected to the gospel.  That means my question – how should the gospel shape our marriages? – is not incidental but essential.  The gospel must shape our marriages because our marriages are based on the gospel and point to the gospel.  We’ll look at specific ways the gospel should shape our marriages in the next post.

*I am indebted to John Piper’s book This Momentary Marriage for the insight that marriage is based on and pictures the Christ/church relationship.  I recommend the book to you.

Teaching the Next Generation

On By BrianIn Family/Single Life

In the sermon this morning we were looking at the book of Judges.  One of the points came from Judges 2:10.  Joshua’s generation passed away, and “there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel.”  What a tragedy!  Somehow Joshua’s generation failed to pass on their faith.  God’s commandments were lost.  Despite all of Moses’ instructions to teach the next generation (see for instance Deut 6), they failed to do it.  The results were the time of the Judges, a corrupt depraved time summarized by the last line of the book: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”  That last line sounds incredibly similar to the approach to morality in our country today.  And the failure to pass on their faith parallels our day too as some statistics say up to 88% of evangelical youth will abandon their faith by the time they finish college.  For further statistics and an interesting analysis, see link

What to do?  Three suggestions: First, parents need to recognize that they have the primary responsibility to teach their children (see Deut 6:5-9 and Ephesians 6:4).  They cannot expect the church to do this for them – it is their responsibility. Many families have a daily family worship time with their children to teach the Bible and pray together.  (See the Center For Biblical Spirituality link in the Recommended Sites list for a great intro book on this idea.)

Second, the church must partner with the parents to help them to teach their children.  Children and youth ministries are important to reinforce what the children are learning at home.  The positive example of other Christians in the church fleshs out what the Christian life looks like.  The church must teach parents the Bible with some depth so the parents can then teach their children.  The church needs to offer parents practical suggestions, ideas, and resources to equip parents to fulfill their role.

Third, parents and churches need to pray, pray, and pray some more.  All of the above will not guarantee that children will follow the Lord.  Ultimately the decision is between the grown child and the Lord.  So we need to pray.

If we have a passion for God and compassion for children, we must teach the next generation for their joy and God’s glory!