An Inkling
Marriage was much on the mind last week as our extended family vacationed together at the lake. One evening we celebrated three August anniversaries with a cake. Numerous conversations anticipated Dorothy and Brandon’s October wedding, as I helped plan their service, and Sarah helped plan reception details, etc. Then over the weekend my cousin, Tracey, remarried. Rob is a gift to her in this season of life, and I know she is a gift to him. So in a single week our family saw marriage anticipated, commenced anew, and celebrated.
We also saw marriage debated every time we turned on the news. Our culture is entangled in a complex debate about the nature of marriage, using only the language of constitutional guarantees and individual rights. Good luck with that!
Marriage, as a gift of God, cannot be understood with legal paradigms alone. We Christians have the challenge of adding our scripturally informed perspective to the cultural conversation – no simple undertaking in a nation that favors no one faith.
If we’re to gain a hearing, we must speak the truth in love. It’s the love that wins a hearing for the truth. We must also speak with humility. It’s not as if we Christians either fully understand or perfectly practice marriage ourselves. Witness the many broken marriages in the church. And we must speak with grace, the very grace which gives promise to our marriages.
Might God use us to re-establish a biblically based understanding of marriage in our land? I hope and pray so. And in the meantime we can seek to live such marriages in our homes – to his glory and our joy.
Here’s to my bride!
Keith
