Why study Momentary Marriage? I read this book two years ago before embarking on my marriage with GraceAnna and it was profoundly influential in my life because I think it strikes the Biblical roots of what marriage is. The book was so important and foundational in my thinking on marriage that I decided that when I am a pastor, I am going to have every couple I marry read this book before marrying them. It really is that important because marriage is that important. In our culture today where marriage is attacked and marginalized, I can't think of a more important topic that we as Christians need to clearly understand and practice. Below are the notes that I used to begin the Introduction of the book with the Knowing God class at Community Bible Church.
Marriage is more than a relationship between a man and a woman. It is the institutional building block of culture. God instituted marriage is His pre-fall, primary means of cultural order:
Genesis 2:18-25 – Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought the to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. The man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. “Therefore a man shall leave father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.
What is the difference between marriage and a live-in relationship?
What does it mean when it says that a man and his wife are one flesh?
Here is what I think is unique about marriage: It involves God’s common grace:
Mark 10:2-12 – And Pharisees came up and in order to test him asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife” He answered them, “What did Moses command you? They said, “Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of divorce and to send her away.” And Jesus said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”
And in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter. And he said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.”
