The author to the Hebrews said that marriage should be held in honor among all (Heb. 13:4). That word, honor, is frequently used in the New Testament to describe something costly, such as gold or precious stones. The verse might be translated, “Let marriage be valued by all” or “Let marriage be precious to everyone.” Yet for many people today, marriage as a treasure has lost its luster.
Over a decade ago, research from the Barna group observed,
Interviews with young adults suggest that they want their initial marriage to last, but are not particularly optimistic about that possibility. There is also evidence that many young people are moving toward embracing the idea of serial marriage, in which a person gets married two or three times, seeking a different partner for each phase of their adult life.1
More recent research has shown that marriage is being postponed in life for many Americans and cohabitation before marriage has climbed drastically from 2007 to 2016 (up 29 percent).2 The biblical depiction of marriage as a lifetime commitment between one man and one woman is rejected by the majority of Millennials and Gen Xers (those born between 1965 and 1996). 3Current social trajectories highlight just how unpopular the traditional Christian view of marriage has become. Rod Dreher writes, “There is no core teaching of the Christian faith that is less popular today, and perhaps none more important to obey. . . . There is no other area in which orthodox Christians will have to be as countercultural as in our sexual lives.”4
The Christian view of marriage didn’t just recently become a hard teaching. When Christ was on earth, among the Jews there was a school of thought that permitted a husband to divorce his wife for just about anything. For the Greeks and Romans, divorce could be accomplished through oral or written notice, and prostitution and adultery were common.5 Jesus’ teaching on divorce elevated marriage and protected women from abandonment in a society where the right of divorce belonged almost exclusively to the man (particularly among the Jews).
According to Jesus, marriage is a complementary, contractual relationship whereby one man and one woman commit themselves to each other for life. We need to recover the beauty of this kind of relationship in a society that often sees marriage as a form of entrapment. The goal of this resource is to go deeper into what the Scriptures teach about marriage, and then to consider what that teaching has to say about our view of sex.
