Marriage

Few SI readers are in a spouse-seeking phase of life. What follows is mostly an effort to organize some thoughts for my own kids and, likely, a future teen Bible study or Sunday School opportunity. Perhaps some readers will find these thoughts useful in their own family or ministry setting.

A brief word about prayer and the will of God. The advice here takes it as a given that the process should be conducted prayerfully. It also assumes that prayer is never a substitute for due diligence. Third, it assumes that although God has a plan for every life, it is not our role as believers to “know the plan.” Our role is to behave wisely, obediently, and worshipfully, and experience the plan as it unfolds. Last, it rejects the idea that the way we follow God’s leading is to get a feeling of peace about an option, then basically go with our gut. “What does your heart tell you?” is Disney, not doctrine.

Five questions for evaluating a potential spouse:

(From Theologically Driven. Used with permission.)

And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. (KJV, Genesis 2:23)

The very first recorded words of Adam have sometimes been the stuff of jokes—the words of a lovestruck fellow who has seen a beautiful woman for the first time: “Look what became of my bone!” he seems to say: “Whoa, Man!” But on closer look, Adam’s words communicate something far more significant than first meets the eye.

When Adam describes Eve as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” Adam is not making a simple statement of fact, but drawing attention to the theological import of the means God used to create her: she was of Adam, and as such she vaults immediately to the place of greatest responsibility in his vast realm.