Cohabitation

PL, I am not saying that a marriage license is unnecessary.
My question is since when, if we say we hew to Biblical examples, does government say who is married to whom and which marriage is valid and which is not ?

You see, way I look at it, this is why so many think marriage is cheap, because the government legalizes it, and the government, therefore, can break it up.
Whereas if a minister marries a professing Christian couple, and the couple profess their vows in front of, as they know, a living God, and wouldn't be too easy to break their vows, and government simply recognizes this marriage instead of being the final authority on who is married legally, that government recognition bestows the secular legal rights of both individuals, which is, by the way, I think what the same-sex marriage proponents are really after.

I will appreciate it if anybody could point to a particular Bible example of a marriage being performed by a Roman magistrate or somebody of Roman government appointment.

 

The Biblical command and example is to obey the laws of the state in which one lives, whether that is first century Rome or 21st century America. That should be all we need. Again, I don't know why this question even comes up.

My guess is that the divorce statistics of minister performed marriages are not that much different than any other kind. If people are going to be godly, then they are godly. Who marries them isn't an issue.

Can you point to a biblical example of a marriage being performed by a pastor?

 

People who seem to not want marriage to be defined legally by the state better think about the legal protections that would be lost for marriage.

No more tax breaks for married couples


Fights over inheritance for widows, widowers, children

No social security benefits for surviving spouse

Taxes on property the partner wants his surviving partner to have

No protections or provisions for children in custody cases if the couple separates


So if you want the state out of marriage, you better be happy that you lose all the protections and benefits the law provides.

 

Which is why I am okay with same sex marriages. The homos and the lesbos aren't really agitating for the right to marry because they seek God's blessings and believe God. They're after all these legal protections, and so it makes me wonder why Christians are so agitated against same sex marriages.

Don't get me wrong. I am not pro-gay.

It's just comical to me for people who say they believe in God to subordinate the sanctity and purposes of marriage as instituted by God to the State all because in order for the married spouses to have legal rights over each other and to have their legal rights protected their marriage has to be announced valid based on pieces of paper issued by civil government they signed and not based on the fact that they performed their vows in a public ceremony before someone in the ministry, and most importantly before a Sovereign and living God.

I am not trying to kick the State out of this, marcia.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that state and ecclessiastical authorities should be at par with each other when it comes to recognizing or not recognizing marriages and the cohabitation of peoples.

Say a professing and practicing Christian couple is married by a minister in a public ceremony with witnesses in church, then all they would need should be the papers signed by both parties and attested to by a duly ordained minister authorized by both church and state to perform marriages. That way should legal claims arise, the marriage certificate, or license if you want to call it that, suffices.

Right now we have a situation where we preach and proclaim God King of kings, except when it comes to marriage, where the king proclaims which of the King's subject's marriages are valid and state-recognized.

 

Pragmatism, pure and simple.

 

What is the biblical basis for this? I asked this same essential question earlier and you didn't answer.

You seem to be complaining that there is no "particular Bible example of a marriage being performed by a Roman magistrate or somebody of Roman government appointment. " I wonder if you have any biblical examples of a valid marriage performed by a pastor.

This is what we have now, isn't it? You get a license that both parties, witnesses, and the one performing the marriage sign, and if legal claims arise that certificate suffices.

I am not following you here. How so? It seems to me that we have been commanded by the King to live under the king. And in following the king's laws about marriage, we are following the King's laws about marriage.

 

Are you saying it's wrong to want the legal benefits, or that it's okay to marry outside the law and still see it as marriage, or both?

Even Paul pleaded his case as a Roman citizen for its protections a couple of times.

God set up the government and civil law reflects God as a God of laws. We should protest when the government tries to make something immoral legal (as in gay marriage) but that does not mean we should ignore the law otherwise.

 

I'm saying your post was pure Pragmatism. You weren't arguing the morality of anything. You were arguing the disadvantages, which are irrelevant to the morality of anything, and, in the case of those mentioned above, merely presumed.