Biblical Marriage

Okay then Larry, look at the above here. It appears that you have accused me of rebellion against God. That is a pretty serious acusation. I am glad that my God is a fair judge and sees the heart of man.

Marriage is ordained of God. Not of state and when you apply for permission to marry by the state you make the state your head not Christ. That is in violation to the order in which God ordained in 1 Cor 11. Also marriage by license normally puts the woman above the man because the woman gets the children and majority of assets in the case of divorce. (another violation of scripture)

 

God has ordained the state and therefore obedience to him must include obedience to the state. There are not many more ways to say this.

The marriage license is gotten before the ceremony. God has not done anything until after that.

The Bible does not specifically say what forms the marriage. It is the pronouncement by the preacher? Is it the commitment of the two in public? Is is the commitment of the two in private?? The Bible does not expressly say what forms the marriage. It does say specifically that we are to submit ourselves to human government.

No one is disputing that ...

Not as much as your consistent equivocation about obeying God nauseates me ... but that is beside the point. I have not been condescending. "My church" is usually the way we refer to the church we attend. If you do not like that phrase, that is fine. It is not a major issues. Use any terms you like you like and give me the answer to my question. I am well aware of the doctrine of the body of Christ and all of its ins and outs.

My question dealt with the relation of the local body of Christ that you attend to the laws of the municipality in which that church's meeting place is located.

 

Walls, honest question here, did you and your husband get a marriage license when you married?

I've met, on the internet, a number of women who are in a covenant type marriage but were married by a pastor without a license. I cannot find in your posts where you have stated that and don't want to assume.... If this is out of line, please ignore my question.

God bless,
Diane

 

I am glad that he is too. But his judgment is based on our response to his commands. I am not the one who accused you of rebellion. God said Romans 13:2 "Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves." If there was an accusation, it came from the pages of Scripture.

I would be very curious as to how you can approve of resisting the ordinance of government in the matter of marriage without resisting the authority of God.

No question ...

Totally wrong and misguided. When you apply for the license from the state, you show your submission to God (cf. Rom 13 1 Peter 2). 1 Cor 11 does not address anything remotely related to this topic.

God told us to obey the authority of the state. Obeying the state does not make them our head instead of Christ. It shows our submission to the headship of Christ and enables us to silence the ignorance of foolish men (1 Peter 2). Obedience to the state is not disobeying God; it is the will of God.

No it doesn't ... This is a sign of desperation. And a biblical marriage does not contemplate divorce. This is a non-issue. People who get divorced are in a situation where one or the other does not want to live under the lordship of Christ. This is a totally fallacious argument.

 

Pastor Larry said: The Bible does not specifically say what forms the marriage. It is the pronouncement by the preacher? Is it the commitment of the two in public? Is is the commitment of the two in private?? The Bible does not expressly say what forms the marriage. It does say specifically that we are to submit ourselves to human government.

I tend to lean toward:

Walls, if you use the Isaac and Rebecca reference that would say to me that a man is married to the first woman he has sex with and has nothing to do with a commitment before God. Praise God, my husband is the only man I've ever been with... but to say a sex act denotes a biblical marriage is quite a stretch!

Diane

 

Not at all. Parents are not property of the parents, not biblically or any other way. They are simply custodians of the children. If parents are neglecting their custodial duties, the state has every responsibility to assure the best interest of the children (not the parents). But that is a whole other issue that's off topic.

The reason why there are so many divorces are because people don't take their commitment seriously, not because they didn't understand what they were getting into. Again, a different topic althether.

Not to be disrespectful, but your grandmother likely didn't fully know what she was doing. In time, as she grew to adulthood, she likely became aware of the responsibility of marriage, and chose to remain. I have girls aged 13 and 16, and neither of them are capable of understanding fully what the concept of marriage involves.

Which has what to do exactly with the State issuing marriage certs??

 

Yes Diane, I am married by covenant. A covenant marriage is a contract between man/wife/church before God.

 

You are wrong there. My grandmother from the time she was born was raised to a wife and only a wife. She was not raised to go out and have her own life or to have a career and so on. God gave women three main purposes; to be a helpmeet, to bear and raise children and to teach younger women(Titus 2). When you train your daughters in these areas, they know their place even at the age of 13.

 

Larry, I am going to assume that you obey every ordinance of man because of the statements that you have made. Which means you: obey all traffic laws at all times, you don't litter-ever; you report all money given to you on your taxes; you don't come up with deductions to lower your taxes because you want to pay your share and not cheat the government and you want every penny to go to causes such as the sodomite and abortion movements, not to mention those lovers of creatures more than the creator, you don't want to short the public schools that teach children evolution and it is okay to be gay, fornicate and so on. I could go on and on with this list.

I certainly hope that based on your stand on Romans 13, and 1 Pet 2 that you break no ordinance because these chapters don't say unless it is against God's word. 1 Pet 2:13 Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether it be to the king, as supreme; 14 Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers, and for the praise of them that do well.

It says every, so regardless of whether it is against God's word, you must obey. So if the state tells you to perform sodomite marriages, you must do it to remain in the will of God.

Although, when you rightly divide the word you will see in 1 Pet that there is a qualifier, these ordinances must follow God's plan. They must punish evil doers(sodomites, murders/abortionists, worshippers of others gods, etc) and praise them that do well (street preachers, those that stand for truth, etc.) The state/government that you say we are to obey is not in the will of God, therefore we are not bound to every ordinance of man, but of God.

This is also stated in Romans 13: 3 For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: 4 For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.

It also says that he/rulers are a minister of God, do you see the state/government as a minister of God? Who gets the wrath of the government? It is not the evil doer, it is a true servant of the Lord.

Now Larry, based on your stand I would have to say that you are not a true American because you would not have approved of the rebellion to tyranny that led to the Revolutionary war. These people refused to participate in unwarranted taxes and to have an ungodly king dictate over them. We are in a sad day when people want to obey government over God. The truth be known that if people obey God's word, they will never have to worry about breaking man's law because they will always be looking out for the good of the common man, they will take care of the widows and fatherless, they will provide for the poor and needy, they will be kind and charitable, they will produce obedient children that don't get into trouble. Beside all that, if God's people were doing their jobs, half of the governmental offices would be put out of commission because there would be no need for welfare or nursing homes and so on.

 

You could, and it would be just as misleading as this is. Yes I obey all traffic laws (even the speed limit) and don’t litter. I report all money given to me on my taxes. I do take deductions because the law allows me. I do not take more than the law permits. I am one of the few ministers honest enough not to have opted out of social security because as yet I don’t have a religious conviction against taking money from it. I have my say in where the money goes because I vote. But once I pay it to the government, it is no longer my money. Just as when I walk in a store and buy something, I don’t get to tell the sells person where to spend the money he makes off of my purchase. That is his money.

The Scripture is clear that our first allegiance is to God. We obey man so long as it does not contradict God. You should have thought before you put that out here. You know better and you know I have said that in this very thread.

This is pure foolishness on your part. I already answered this. Obeying government does not require us to disobey God. In the words of the apostles, we must obey God rather than man. But we are not permitted to disobey government, unless they require us to disobey God. There is no biblical command or precept that is violated by obtaining a marriage license. Therefore, to be married without one is resisting the authority of God. Remember, those are his words, not mine.

I have already said that I will not perform a homosexual marriage. I have already reminded you that “sodomite” is not an appropriate word to describe it. I don’t even perform many heterosexual marriages. I am very particular about who I marry. I have already stated that if the state required me to perform all marriages (or any marriages for that matter), I would perform none. I don’t have to marry people.

Bad exegesis and it is leading you to disobedience. Rom 13 reminds us that the avenger is the government. I am not to take matters into my own hands. The laws of the state must not contradict God’s plan. God did not give a directive regarding driving for instance. But I am not allowed to disobey the traffic laws because God didn’t say anything about it … just like God didn’t say anything about marriage license, so you are not allowed to disobey that law either. You don’t have to get a marriage license … unless you intend to get married. If you don’t want to get a marriage license, then follow your convictions and stay single. Do not disobey God.

Yes, God said so.

Not always. Government is not always right and doesn’t always do things the way I would. But notice the NT example of the early Christians. They did not resist government. They did not disobey unless it compromised their obedience to God.

Your last paragraph is more ridiculous meandering. I think this has run its course. The longer this goes, the more ridiculous the attempts to defend disobedience become. It is time to put it to bed.

 

This may be hard for you to understand, but you do not decide what is a major issue to me.

 

This may be hard for you to understand, but you do not decide what is a major issue to me. </font>[/QUOTE]I wasn't deciding for you. I was telling you that it is not a major issue. We should not major on minors. Do not, in the words of Christ, strain out gnats while swallowing camels. If you don't like the phrase, that is fine.

 

Larry for the sake of the argument, I will say your are completely right. Now I ask you to provide the federal law/ordinance that requires two natural born united states citizens to obtain a license in order to come together in Biblical marriage.

 

Bro Larry, I know this is far fetched but if the state of Michigan told your church that starting this Sunday you could only have communion if there was a representative of the state present in your services, what would you say?

Of course, the law for this was passed by the Michigan state legislature because it had a compelling interest in whether your church was giving alcoholic beverages to minors.

Second scenario: The state of Michigan passed a state statute that required the persons to be Baptized by the church that you pastor first submit their names to the Department of Human Services. The DHS has a compelling state interest because you baptize in a river in Michigan in Dec, Jan and Feb and this just might be child abuse. What would you do?

First of all you could say that these laws are not rigorous and do not interfere with your preaching or practice and submit. Secondly you could say that if you don't the public might get the idea that you must be some kind of cult because you don't comply with non-intrusive laws. What would you say and do?

Thanks -------Bart "the dueling society was a polite society".

 

These are state issues, not federal ones. The federal government recognizes marriages by state law, not federal. There may be some states that don't require it. Some states require different things, such as waiting periods, STD testing, etc.

 

Since we don't serve alcoholic beverages, we are exempt from that.

Nothing since we don't baptize in a river.

I wouldn't worry about it because neither would apply to us. However, anyone who baptizes in a river in the north in Dec, Jan, or Feb needs to have their head examined ...

However, if the state wished to be present, I would tell them the times and invite them to come. There is no problem there. We like visitors in all of our services and baptism and communion are two prime times to share the gospel with people. They would be more than welcome. Their presence or absence will not change what we do.

You are right that these are farfetched scenarios beyond the grounds of reasonability. I am not particularly worried. Most "worst case scenarios" in these types of arguments are creations of the desparate mind to show a possible place where the state might sometime in some way make some law that might possibly affect something we do. Here at this church, we have a very clear priority of allegiance. These issues would not affect us. If they want to come, come on ... They know when we do it. It will be a chance to preach to them.

It is doubtful that these laws would hold up anyway since they are laws respecting an establishment of religion and that is a direct violation of the first amendment.

[ November 08, 2003, 09:22 AM: Message edited by: Pastor Larry ]

 

The first amendment of the Constitution of the United States reads; Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...

Larry you have stated that you claim deductions on your income taxes because you are allowed. Well, the first amendment recognizes my right to freely practice my Biblical beliefs. God, Christ, man, wife; is the proper order of a family. And that is why there is no federal law/ordinance requiring a license to marry.

And yes you are right, that each state varies in their laws/ordinance, but as long as a state recongnizes freedom of religion then there is no way that you can say that anyone who doesn't marry by license is in rebellion to God or His word!!

 

What about Romans Chapter 13??

 

God has defined marriage in His Word. Whether in obedience or disobedience to the state, it is still marriage in God's sight.