Henry's Heart and the value of a good wife.

If you have ever heard a old southern preacher speak you may have heard him quote a even older minister by the name of Matthew Henry. As a preacher’s kid I’ve heard my share of Henry quotes. Yet most do not know the person behind the quotes. Matthew Henry was Presbyterian preacher from the days before Ipods and streaming video, when the printing press was still a new thing and writing was a laborious task. Henry was known to work like a mad man —both in the pulpit and in his study. Throughout his life he maintained this intensive preaching and pastoral ministry.

His legacy is communicated through his commentary on the whole Bible, a task that took him his whole life to complete. Henry completed Genesis through Acts and after his death; His ministerial colleagues completed Romans to Revelation based on his notes and sermons. It is known for its poetic beauty, striking insights and puritanical sensibility. While he is most know for His commentary, it is his little book on spiritual communion called “How to spend a day with God,” that touched my mind and opened me to a God–soaked vision of reality, where God plays in ten thousand places. [1]

It is perhaps significant to note that Henry was not removed from suffering and tragedy. His first wife Katherine died in child-birth in 1689 after only two years of marriage. Although he later remarried he and his second wife, Mary, lost three children in infancy in the following seven years. It was during his time with Mary that he wrote many works, ministered all over England and began his famous commentary.

After the death of his first wife, Matthew Henry was overcome with grief. He would later say, "I know nothing that could support me under such a loss as this, but the good hope that she is gone to heaven." He was a broken man but now a father for though his wife was gone their daughter survived. Matthew named her Katharine in honor of her mother. The two, father and daughter, began their journey from the hills of sorrow.

Matthew met his second wife Mary two years after his first wife died. The hurt and loss of his first wife had begun to heal but he was still a broken man. Mary came as a healing balm, soothing the unsteadiness of Matthew and renewing his vision for the future. By all accounts, Mary was a good and Godly wife. She was one who complimented Matthew in many ways, able to endure hardship with grace and find worship in freeing Matthew to minister. She created space for Matthew so he could devote time to what he felt God was asking of him. In His commentary on the creation of Eve he highlights her dignity and status. You can almost see Mary in the background of his words. Amidst contemporary confusion over human identity and marital relations, Henry’s counsel deserves careful consideration.

Yet man being made last of the creatures, as the best and most excellent of all, Eve's being made after Adam, and out of him, puts an honour upon that sex, as the glory of the man, (1 Co. 11:7). If man is the head, she is the crown, a crown to her husband, the crown of the visible creation. The man was dust refined, but the woman was dust double-refined, one remove further from the earth.

That Adam slept while his wife was in making, that no room might be left to imagine that he had herein directed the Spirit of the Lord, or been his counsellor, (Isa 40:13). He had been made sensible of his want of a meet help; but, God having undertaken to provide him one, he does not afflict himself with any care about it, but lies down and sleeps sweetly, as one that had cast all his care on God, with a cheerful resignation of himself and all his affairs to his Maker's will and wisdom. Jehovah-jireh, let the Lord provide when and whom he pleases. If we graciously rest in God, God will graciously work for us and work all for good . . .

That the woman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam; not made out of his head to rule over him, nor out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be protected, and near his heart to be beloved [2.]

Matthew Henry reminds us all to look at all things from this higher set of values. Henry reminds married men, your personal Eve is not a footstool or doormat so be about leading by serving. Nor did you know what you really needed but God knew and gave you what you needed. God’s will and wisdom is found in the wife you have not the wife you think she should be. Respond to the wife you have like Christ and so fill your days with love (Eph 5:22-32). Henry reminds women they are the crown of creation and should thus shine with godly virtue and wisdom. Like all crowns in scripture they are to be laded at Christ feet in humility. So receive your husband as you would receive Christ and in so honor him.

Proverbs 18:22 reads, “He who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the LORD.” Elsewhere in Proverbs it is written, “a prudent wife is from the LORD.” (Pr 19:14b). Matthew Henry understood this not just as a biblical truth but as reality. He understood the value of a good wife because he knew loss and love. Mary was to him a gift of grace. In a day of cheep things - value is lost. Our enjoyment has become connected with the pleasure of this world that most no longer appreciate those institutions of higher value like marriage and a virtuous wife. May we all see marriage and our respective spouse through Henry's heart.

Notes
(1.) God plays in ten thousand places are the title of a book by Eugene Peterson that explains a God centered vision of the world.
(2.) Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1991), 10.

What is the

International Symbol of Marriage

Look below

SOmE LEivity


about MARRIAGE!



From a Guy sick of writing about it!



I have found out that in marriage opposites do attract!!!!

The first car of every married couples needs to be economical...BUT not too economical.. need room to… how shall I say it..”MANEUVER”

why marriage?

In today’s divorce-ridden society, do young people still want to get married? This pod, from the producer’s of the Emmy nominated documentary “Song of Songs,” travels to colleges across the country asking students about their take on long term commitment.

A Theocentric ethic of Marriage

TITLE: A Theocentric Ethic of Marriage:

The Attributes of God as the foundation of (for) an ethic of marriage

SUMMARY:

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Gen 1:1 (NASB)

The beginning of understanding is found in understanding the beginning. This is why, Genesis begins as it does. Sailhamer writes of this opening statement, “the account opens with a clear, concise statement about the Creator and the creation. Its simplicity belies the depth of its content. These seven words (in Hebrew) are the foundation of all that is to follow in the bible.[1] James Sire illustrates this point:

One day a little boy came to his father. “Today the teacher showed us a big round globe. She said was a model of the world. She said the world was just surrounded by space. How can that be? Dad, what holds up the world? Why doesn’t it just fall down?”

His father, knowing that this was just a child’s question, gave him a child’s answer: “it’s a camel holds up the world, son.”

The Boy went away satisfied, for he trusted his father… the next day [the son] decided something was missing in his father’s answer. He asked, “Dad I was just wondering if a camel holds up the world, what holds up the camel?”… “It’s a kangaroo that holds up the camel.” Again the boy when away, but this time only for a couple of hours. Back again with His Father, he asked, “dad if a camel holds up the world and a kangaroo holds up the camel, what holds up the kangaroo?” “It’s an elephant holds up the kangaroo”

Come on Dad!” His son retorted. What holds up the elephant?” His father, in a fit of genius deriving from necessity, replied. “It’s…. It’s …. it’s Elephant all the way down.[2]

Sire informs us of two points from the story. One, “If it takes something to hold up the world, then there has to be a first holder, something that doesn’t require being held up – a prime foundation.” [3] It is God all the way down. He is the prime foundation that holds up reality. The Scripture teaches that God is the foundation of everything. All that is rests on God. Two, the father has to realize that there is no logical way to stop the regress. Out of necessity there had to be a point of commitment. Simple faith in the most likely answer: the biggest animal he could thing of an elephant. He is the starting point of all logical thought about reality. God is the foundation of everything and human thought and action necessarily must begin at a genesis of faith in just such a foundation.

The story point to a bigger reality and Sire’s points remind us of the truth of Genesis 1:1. It is no wonder the Apostles’ Creed begins with: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth!” Calvin taking his queue from the Apostles creed begins The Institutes with “The Knowledge of God the Creator”. Schaeffer writes, “Christianity as a system does not begin with Christ as Savior, but with the infinite-personal God who created the world in the beginning and who made man significant in the flow of history.”[4] Beginnings are important. Schaeffer points out that Christ is not the beginning he is the panicle, but God is the beginning.

The point of departure in many ways determines where and how you end up. First things guide last things. One’s aim determines where the bullet will fly. In Genesis 1:1, it is written, “In the beginning God,” the first four words of the Genesis are rich with meaning. Three points will to flush out the richness of this meaning and how it applies to marriage. First, God is before all, in himself, complete in perfection, radiant in holy other love. God is truly the foundation of everything. In him is the beginning of all things. Follow any chain of material causality and you end in a mystery. Hemmed into a corner the leap to logical casualty must be made and there you end in the first cause, the God of the beginning.[5] Because God is we are. His existence is necessary for our existence to have meaning. Therefore His is, necessarily, the foundation of all things. Say another way, God is the center of all things. God is the foundation of all, value, meaning, ethics, beauty, truth, goodness, and knowledge. God does not just give meaning to the world but he is the meaning for the world. If our existence derives from his existence then it follows that our value derives from his value. A work of art is only as valuable as the fame of its artist and the skill by which the art was made. God is the creator, and as such he gives value to all things.

As The Creator God it is fitting that He would be the object of ultimate worth and value. As a triune being that exists as a community of self-giving love, it is fitting that He Loves himself as one worthy of ultimate love and glory. Thus, God created all things for the glory of God. Out of the overflow of love for himself, God created all things to love, honor and glorify him for he is the only object worthy of greatest love. Thus all things are made with a particular “telos” in mind, the glory of God.[6] God formed creation in a particular way to accomplish this end. All of life has a movement towards its God-given perfection and ultimate end in God. [7] In Romans 11 Paul writes descriptively of this God-centered way of creation. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen. (Rom 11:36) All Creation, including humanity, was made to live by a God-centered rhythm of exit and return.[8] Paul writes as a human for humanity. So in this passage He shows humanity’s moral movement to be a three beat rhythm consisting of acknowledgment, dependence and response. Acknowledgment (Faith) We live from him, the Creator of what is and how it is to be. Thus all things are ultimately relate to him for all things begin with him and have identity from him. Dependence (Hope): We live though him as dependant creatures clinging to the foundation of our existence, drinking from Him as the fount of all life, beauty, truth, and goodness. Thus all things are ultimately relate to him for all things find life and meaning in him. Response (Love): We live to him in a God-ward journey of responding to God and bring him glory. Thus all things are ultimately relate to him for all things have a God-centered purpose in bringing him glory. So the purpose for all that exists is God. He is the center of life from the beginning. Yet only Humanity can fail to follow such a style of life. [9]

Two, God is the foundation of marriage. Two reasons for this build on the above vision of life as God-centered. First, as a particular mode of human existence, Marriage is found within the call of creation to Glory in God and live a God-ward life. Thus, God is the foundation of marriage in the same way he is the foundation for life. Two Jesus implied that God was the foundation of marriage. Jesus in Matthew 19:4-6 teaches a similar vision. He believed the scope of marriage is universal. God instituted a common grace for union, an inseparable union of two becoming spiritually one. It is a creation grace available to all humanity. To this end, Elton Trueblood describes marriage as one of the common ventures of life.[10] Jesus taught not only the scope of marriage but also its origin. Jesus echoes genesis when he implies that God came up with the idea of marriage. It is as if he states, “In the beginning God created marriage.” Marriage begins with God. God as creator and innovator of all things, created the idea of marriage and his work of marital union as a grace for humanity. God invented marriage and as the inventor he takes His idea and His work infinitely serious. Jesus’ teaching on marriage as having a theocentric center clearly supports the idea of God being the foundation of marriage. The ethical nature of marriage is rooted and grounded in God.

Three, If God is the foundation of marriage then God’s attributes are the foundation of the ethic of marriage. It follows that if he is the foundation of marriage then who he is become important to our ethic of marriage. The most important question in life is not why God? Or How God? But Who is this God? Who is this God that grounds our existence? Who is this God that plans and commands? Who is this God we are made to worship? The question of who is more important that How or why or what. For without answering to ‘who’ all other questions remains vague and unclear? Without ‘Who’, we do not know the one who plans and commands so the commands become arbitrary and the style of marriage loosely fitting and flexible. Without a ‘who’, we worship only mystery, a god on no name and no intimacy. Intimacy has its genesis in the exchanging of names. We call him Lord and he calls us friend and to his friends he discloses the mysteries of his heart. Without a ‘who’, we truly have no gravity for our existence. The meaning and virtue of a thing is defined is it relates to the knowledge of God. God is standard by which life is measured. We do not know justice till we know justice as God is justice. Nor do we know love till we know God as Love. Said another way, Life has meaning because God gladly bears up the full weight of meaninglessness and overpowers it with resurrection might, overflowing it with the glory of who he is. God, by the seer gravity of who he is, infuses all things with worth, value, and meaning as they are related to him. God is great, overseeing all that is with the weight of his presence.. God is good, leveling all that is with the measure of who he is. God is glorious filling to all that is with meaning and purpose. God is Gracious, condescending into all that is, to be and bring all that is back to Him. We can understand from these four predications of God that God is the moral gravity of life.

Today much is made of the idea that marriage teaches us about God. That marriage teaches. So in the experience of marriage we are informed about God. The profound mystery is marriage teaches us about Christ and the church. Yet is the opposite true? Does God teach us about marriage? If marriage teaches us about God, does God teach us anything about marriage? who God is, does it speak to those in wedlock? Does His nature and attributes have anything to say to our ethic of marriage? The answer is yes for God is the foundation of marriage and he is the foundation of everything. For example: Our God is trinity. Our triune God is a marriage of unity in diversity. A “perichoresis” [11] in covenant community: A community that created worlds and worshipers by the very overflow of its own personal expressions of intimacy and love for himself. Marriage as a self in “perichoresis” covenant union with another self forming a worshiping community that molds the next generation of believers by an incarnational self-giving in love and service to all.

It is necessary to find the proper center for false centers abound. Many now see marriage as an institution that is a slave to serve the self. The idea of God simply affects all of life. It strong pull can bring all loose ends of life into properly ordered orbit. Yet this affect is only as strong as the soul pathos for truth, beauty and goodness. God is before marriage, he created marriage and God ought to be at the central of marriage. Four descriptions of God outline this point: God is Great, Good, Glorious and Gracious. God is great, Marriage is not greater. God is good, Marriage is not better. God is glorious Marriage is of lesser glory. God is Gracious. Marriage has no grace that is not given. Marriage needs to get saved and if marriage is to be the vision of the good-life. To be a vision of the good life it must find its proper center. Today, marriage needs such a ground and gravity. Today, Marriage needs God.

THESIS: In this paper it will be shown that the ethical Christian marriage is a God-centered marriage. Where God is ultimate and from that foundation unfold a description of how a passionate “knowing” of God’s attributes informs and inspires the Christian ethic of marriage.

---

[1] John H. Sailhamer, “the Pentateuch as Narrative,” (Grand rapids: Zondervan, 1992) p 82.

[2] James Sire, Naming the Elephant (IVP Press 2004) pg 16

[3] Ibid 16

[4] Francis A. Schaeffer, Genesis in Space and Time: The Flow of Biblical History (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1972), p. 97.

[5] In G. K. Chesterton’s work orthodoxy there is a great chapter (chapter 3) on this very subject which I do not have time to fully write on here.

[6] See Jonathans Edwards, The end for which God created the world in John Piper’s God’s passion for his glory.

[7] Kreefts explains us, “There are two relationships between Creator and creature. But modern Christians usually remember only one of them. First, God loves everything. Second, everything loves God. The second is as true as the first. Acorns grow into oak trees because they are in love with God. That is, they seek unconsciously their own perfection, which is a participation in some of God's perfection. An oak tree is more perfect, more godlike, than an acorn. An acorn is not satisfied to be an acorn, because it wants (unconsciously, of course) to be more like God. God is the magnet that draws all the iron filings that are creatures closer to himself. That is why everything moves. It is seeking its own perfection, which is a reflection of God's perfection. Everything moves out of love of God.” Peter Kreeft, The God who loves you (San Fran. Ignatius press 2004) p. 102-103

[8] Kreefts writes, “Now God is not only the first efficient cause of the universe, its ultimate origin. He is also the last final cause of the universe, its ultimate end. "I am the Alpha and the Omega" (Rv 1:8), the beginning and the end, Jesus tells us. Thus everything in the universe is and lives and moves and has its being not only from God but also toward God. Augustine's great line is true of everything in nature as well as man: "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and [therefore] our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee." Peter Kreeft, The God who loves you (San Fran. Ignatius press 2004) p. 104

[9] Kreefts reminds us, “Everything loves God in its way. Not only did God love everything into existence by creation, he also loves everything into perfection by being the universal beloved. Not only does God love everything, but everything loves God. Only man can move contrary to this principle of nature through freely choosing evil. Every thing loves God, but not every one loves God” Peter kreeft, The God who loves you (San Fran. Ignatius press 2004) p. 104

[10] Elton Trueblood, The Common Ventures of Life: Marriage, Birth, Work, Death. (New York, Harper & row 1949). This little book discuses the common experiences of birth work marriage and death in the contexts of a sacramental view of reality.

[11] “perichoresis” can be defined as co-indwelling, co-inhering, and mutual interpenetration of life together from a joy found in the other. Alister McGrath writes with regards to the Trinity but the analogical understanding is evident. The concept of perichoresis "allows the individuality of the persons to be maintained, while insisting that each person shares in the life of the other two. An image often used to express this idea is that of a 'community of being,' in which each person, while maintaining its distinctive identity, penetrates the others and is penetrated by them." Alister McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 3rd ed. (Blackwell, 2001.) pg 325

A Wedding Sermon from Prision by Dietrich Bonhoeffe

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German pastor and theologian during the Second World War. He was jailed and finally killed by The SS for crimes against Germany. His story is remarkable. He was a deep thinker with a grand vision for the church. In my research for my thesis I found a great sermon by him. I want to give a little background that will help in appreciating this sermon in light of the context it was written in and the person who penned it. First, it was written from a dark and damp jail cell as Dietrich waited to hear of his fate. Second, Bonhoeffer wrote it for his nephew. A wedding he has promised to officiate months before his incarceration. Third, Bonhoeffer was a 36 year old virgin who was himself engaged to be married. I am sure the thought of love and marriage was a rich and meaningful idea to him. When I first read it I wept from the knowledge that he died before he could enjoy something he so clearly understood. Fourth, Bonhoeffer also knew that there was a good chance he was going to die before the year was over. This could well be the last sermon many in his family would hear from him. In light of the facts, breathe deep and take in His words as spirit and life. For clarity, I have taken the liberty of pulling the main points and outlining the work itself.

The sermon highlights 5 important points:

• "God is guiding your marriage"
• "God makes your marriage indissoluble"
• "God establishes a rule of life by which you can live together in wedlock" (Col. 3:18, 19)
• "God has laid on marriage a blessing and a burden," that of children.
• "God gives you Christ as the foundation of your marriage."

A Wedding Sermon from a Prison Cell

I. Introduction and personal comments to bride and groom

Ephesians 1.12: '. . . to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory.'

a. The triumph of a choice

IT IS wholly right and proper for a bride and bridegroom to welcome their wedding day with a sense of triumph. All the difficulties, obstacles, impediments, doubts and suspicions have at last been--I shall not say, thrown to the winds, for that would be to make too light of them--but honestly faced and overcome. Both parties have now won the most important battle of their lives. You have just said to one another 'I will', and with those words you have declared your voluntary assent and turned a critical point in your lives. You know full well all the doubts and suspicions with which a lifelong partnership between two persons is faced. But you have defied these doubts and suspicions with a cheerful confidence, and by your free assent you have conquered a new land to live in.

b. The gravity of such a choice

Every wedding is an occasion of joy, joy that human beings can do such great things, that they have been granted the freedom and the power to take the rudder of their lives into their own hands. The children of earth are rightly proud when they are allowed a hand in shaping their own destinies. And it is right that a bride and bridegroom should have this pride on their wedding day. It would be wrong to speak too lightly and irresponsibly about God's will and providence. To begin with there can be no question that it is your own very human wills which are at work here, which are celebrating their triumph. The course you are embarking upon is one you have chosen for yourselves. It is not in the first place something religious, but something quite secular. And so you alone must bear the responsibility for what you are doing, it cannot be taken from you. It is you, the bride and bridegroom, who as a married couple must bear the whole responsibility for the success of your married life, with all the happiness it will bring. Unless you can boldly say to-day: 'This is our resolve, our love, our way', you are taking refuge in a false piety. 'Iron and steel may pass away, but our love shall abide for ever.' You hope to find in another that earthly bliss in which, to quote a medieval song, the one is the comfort of the other both in body and in soul. Such a hope has its proper place in God's eyes as well as man's.

c. You have been blessings and God is to blame

You have both been abundantly blessed in your lives up till now, and you have every reason to be thankful. The beauties and joys of life have almost overwhelmed you, success has always come your way, and you have been surrounded by the love of your friends. Your path has always been smoothed out before you. Amid all the changes and chances of life you have always been able to count on the support of both your families and your friends.

d. It was God that guided you here

Every one has been generous to you, and now you have found each other, and have at last been led to the goal of your desires. Such a life, as you know full well, can never be created or entered upon in our own power. It is given to some and denied to others. That is what we mean by divine providence. As you rejoice to-day that you have reached your goal, so you will be grateful that God's will and God's way have brought you hither. As you take full responsibility upon your own shoulders for what you are doing to-day, so with equal confidence you may place it all in the hands of God.

e. God alone forms two Vows into one Marriage

God has sealed your 'I will' with his own. He has crowned your assent with his. He has bestowed upon you this triumph and rejoicing and pride. He is thus making you the instruments of his will and purpose both for yourselves and for others. In his unfathomable condescension God veritably gives his Yea to yours. But in so doing he creates out of your love something that did not exist before--the holy estate of matrimony.

II. First point - "God is guiding your marriage"

God is guiding your marriage. Marriage is more than your love for each other. It has a higher dignity and power. For it is God's holy ordinance, by means of which he wills to perpetuate the human race until the end of time. In your love you see your two selves as solitary figures in the world; in marriage you see yourselves as links in the chain of the generations, which God causes to come and go to his glory and calls into his kingdom. In your love you see only the heaven of your bliss, through marriage you are placed at a post of responsibility towards the world and to mankind. Your love is your own private possession; marriage is more than a private affair, it is an estate, an office. As the crown makes the king, and not just his determination to rule, so marriage and not just your love for each other makes you husband and wife in the sight of God and man. As you first gave the ring to one another and received it a second time from the hand of the parson, so love comes from you, but marriage from above, from God. As God is infinitely higher than man, so the sanctity, the privilege and the promise of marriage are higher than the sanctity, the privilege and promise of love. It is not your love which sustains the marriage, but from now on the marriage that sustains your love.

III. Second point - God makes your marriage indissoluble.

God makes your marriage indissoluble. 'Those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.' God is joining you together: it is his act, not yours. Do not confound your love with God. God makes your marriage indissoluble, he protects it from every danger from within and without. What a blessed thing it is to know that no power on earth, no human frailty can dissolve what God holds together. Knowing that, we may say with all confidence, what God has joined together man cannot put asunder. No need now to be troubled with those anxious fears so inseparable from love. You can say to each other now without a shadow of doubt: 'We can never lose each other now. By the will of God we belong to each other till death us do part.'

IV. Third point -"God establishes a rule of life by which you can live together in wedlock"

God establishes an ordinance in which you can live together as man and wife. 'Wives, be in subjection to your husbands, as is fitting in the Lord. Husbands, love your wives, and be not bitter against them' ( Colossians 3.18, 19). With your love you are founding a home. That needs an ordinance, and this ordinance is so important that God establishes it himself, for without it life would be reduced to chaos. You may order your home as you like, save in one particular: the woman must be subject to her husband, and the husband must love his wife. In this way God gives to man and woman the glory peculiar to each. It is the glory of the woman to serve the man and to be a 'help meet' for him, as the creation story calls it. And it is the glory of the man to love his wife with all his heart. He 'will leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife', he will 'love her as his own flesh'. A woman who seeks to dominate her husband dishonours not only him but herself as well, just as the man who does not love his wife as he should dishonours himself as well as her, and both dishonour the glory of God which is meant to rest upon the estate of matrimony. There is something wrong with a world in which the woman's ambition is to be like a man, and in which the man regards the woman as the toy of his lust for power and freedom. It is a sign of social disintegration when the woman's service is thought to be degrading, and when the man who is faithful to his wife is looked upon as a weakling or a fool.

The place God has assigned for the woman is the husband's home. Most people have forgotten nowadays what a home can mean, though some of us have come to realize it as never before. It is a kingdom of its own in the midst of the world, a haven of refuge amid the turmoil of our age, nay more, a sanctuary. It is not founded on the shifting sands of private and public life, but has its peace in God. For it is God who gave it its special meaning and dignity, its nature and privilege, its destiny and worth. It is an ordinance God has established in the world, the place where peace, quietness, joy, love, purity, continence, respect, obedience, tradition, and, to crown them all, happiness may dwell, whatever else may pass away in the the world. It is the woman's calling and her joy to build up this world within the world for her husband, and to make it the scene of her activity. How happy she is when she realizes what a noble and rich destiny and task is hers. Not novelty, but permanence, not change, but constancy, not noisiness, but peace, not words, but deeds, not peremptoriness, but persuasion, and all these things inspired and sustained by her love for her husband--such is the woman's kingdom. In the Book of Proverbs we read:

'The heart of her husband trusteth in her. And he shall have no lack of gain. She doeth him good and not evil all the days of her life. She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. She riseth also while it is yet night. And giveth meat to her household. And their task is to their maidens. . . . She spreadeth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her hands to the needy. . . . Strength and dignity are her clothing; And she laugheth at the time to come. . . . Her children rise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her, saying, Many daughters have done virtuously, But thou excellest them all.'

Again and again the Bible praises, as the supreme happiness which earth affords, the fortune of a man who finds a true, or as the Bible itself calls her, a 'virtuous' or 'wise' woman. 'Her price is far above rubies.' 'A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband.' But the Bible can speak just as frankly of the woe which the perverse or 'foolish' woman can bring upon her husband and her home.

The Bible goes on to call the man the head of the woman, adding also 'even as Christ is the Head of the Church'. Something of the divine splendour is here reflected in our earthly relationships, and this reflection is something we should recognize and honour. The dignity ascribed to the man lies not in any quality of his own, but in the office conferred upon him by his marriage. The woman should see her husband arrayed in this dignity. But for him it is his supreme responsibility. As the head, it is he who is responsible for his wife, for their marriage, and for their home. On him falls the care and protection of the family. He represents it to the outside world, he is its mainstay and comfort; he is the master of the house, who exhorts, helps, comforts, and stands as their priest before God. It is good thing, for it is a divine ordinance when the woman honours the man for his office's sake, and when the man properly discharges the duties of his office. The man and woman who acknowledge and observe the ordinance of God are 'wise', but those who think they can replace it by another of their own devising are 'foolish'.

V. Forth point – “God has laid upon marriage both a blessing and a burden.”

God has laid upon marriage both a blessing and a burden.

a. the blessing is the promise of children

The blessing is the promise of children. God allows man to co-operate with him in the work of creation and preservation. But it is always God himself who blesses marriage with children. 'Children are a gift that cometh of the Lord' ( Psalm 127), and they should be acknowledged as such. It is from God that parents receive their children, and it is to him that they should lead them. Hence parents exercise an authority over their children which is derived from God. Luther says that God invests parents with a chain of gold, and Scripture annexes to the fifth commandment the promise of long life on earth.

b. the burden of children is 1.) the pain of childbirth and 2.) the weight providing for them

But since men live on earth, God has given them a lasting reminder that this earth stands under the curse of sin and is not itself the ultimate reality. Over the destiny of woman and of man lies the dark shadow of the wrath of God. The woman must bear her children in pain, and in providing for his family the man must reap many thorns and thistles and labour in the sweat of his brow. This burden should drive both man and wife to call on God and should remind them of their eternal destiny in his kingdom. Earthly society is but the beginning of that eternal society, the earthly home the image of the heavenly, the earthly family the symbol of the Fatherhood of God over men, who are all his children.

VI. Fifth point - God intends you to found your marriage on Christ.

God intends you to found your marriage on Christ. 'Wherefore receive ye one another, even as Christ also received you, to the glory of God.' In a word, live together in the forgiveness of your sins, for without it no human fellowship, least of all a marriage, can survive. Don't insist on your rights, don't blame each other, don't judge or condemn each other, don't find fault with each other, but take one another as you are, and forgive each other every day from the bottom of your hearts.

From the first day of your marriage until the last your rule must be: 'Receive one another . . . to the praise of God.'

Such is the word of God for your marriage. Thank him for it, thank him for bringing you thus far. Ask him to establish your marriage, to confirm and hallow it and preserve it to the end. With this your marriage will be 'to the praise of his glory'. Amen.

Prisoner for God: Letters and Papers from Prison:
Dietrich Bonhoeffer - author,
Eberhard Bethge - editor,
Reginald H. Fuller - transltr.
Publisher: Macmillan.
Place of Publication: New York.
Publication Year: 1960.
pages 36-39