Taking Marriage from Good to Great

I know this is going to sound a lot like "the dog ate my homework" excuse but honestly I had planned a blog post for this week entitled "What Marriage is Really For" and it was meant to be a response to what appears to be a popular blog post that has been going around entitled "Marriage Isnt For You" by Seth Adam Smith.

I found the post to be good. Good not great. It expresses a good idea of not seeing marriage as being about you but as a means of serving your spouse. The problem is it misses the great idea that marriage isnt about either of you but, in the life of the believer, it's about Jesus. As I was planning that post I was sent a link to someone who had the same reaction I had. There is a good response written by Benjamin Pontius at his blog "The Everlasting Fallout." It expresses the idea really well and I would encourage you to read it.

The only point I would add to his well written post is, since the "main reason that our King created marriage was to give the world an image of what his love for his people looks like", we can see the reason why God calls us to fidelity in our marriages and why Malachi says God "hates divorce" (Malachi 2:16) and why Christ paints a very narrow exception for divorce (Matthew 19:3-9).  He is faithful to His church, He endures for His church and He provides for His church. We are called to do the same in our marriages.

Marriage isn't for either of us, it's for Jesus.