Marriage
The word Marriage has its enigmatic {difficult to understand} element to its meaning, because many interpretations are given; however, some are biasely given to favour cultural norms of those who devise that definition. And such understanding feeds into the way it's handled or treated. With this in mind, I would like to give my own understanding to which marriage is defined, and the scriptural view to which it should be meant and treated.
Definition
Marriage is blending two backgrounds of complete ignorant personalities together to make one compromising entity. The key word here is the compromise, that becomes a sticking point which sometimes 'disturbs' the whole stability of the relationship, because one partner wouldn't like to make sacrifices to reflect that compromise, as the union of the two people grows older, and the familiarity of each other becomes annoyingly unbearable. Many times couples blame the problems in the marriage on the long stay of it, which in the real sense has nothing to do with that, but rather that, for all these years they haven't realised the 'Jekyll and Hyde' element to the nature of the word marriage.
What many couples fail to understand is that marriage, would once a while rears its ugly head to test the nerve system of the relationship; and therefore it's up to the couple to learn how to deal and cope with that unexpected surprises, and that's the one I call the Jekyll and Hyde element. Which is being happy getting on nicely with each other, when love seems bloomy today, and then, tomorrow, you're on each other's throat praying not to cut it off; and at that moment you feel like you've made the worse mistake of the century for marrying that person. This is the split personality aspect of the marriage, which I referred to as Jekyll and Hyde, that every marriage must go through many times in the life time. There's no marriage that can be classified as 'perfect' and even God who put that institution together never expected us to have a perfect marriage, because human beings are flawed in nature, and it's only in Christ that our perfection is found.
Though our righteousness is in Christ, sometimes our natural self sticks out to undermine the glorious relationship God intended for with our spouses. Though we might be flawed in our perfection stakes, but there's no compromise from God for us to use our imperfection to run our marriage into chaos, wretchedness and unfaithfulness. God demands of us to lead a GOOD marriage; good in the sense that when problems arise it's solved amicably, sacrifices are made to care for the other partner, security is assured and romantic love is practised 'deliberately' even when you don't feel like it. Every Christian marriage is entitled to these qualities, and these underline our values in the Risen Christ, who paid for our imperfection, with his life.
Communication
Key aspect to such miserable time in the Jekyll and Hyde moment is talking to each other more, even when that period hasn't arrived yet. Many times the reason it hurts so much when trouble brews, is that the couples elevate each other's good personality sky high in the intervening period of the early stages, when the hidden 'bad behaviour' hasn't been revealed in the relationship yet; and I can promise you that some people are good at hiding them really well to pull a nasty surprise oneday. Talking must include absolutely everything, nothing should be left out, some people say their spouse is not a good talker, then it's your responsibility to make him or her talk, that's part of the compromise element she or he must learn, otherwise 'fire would burn the house down' and no one can extinguish it.
There's a silly understanding from some men who think they're the bosses in the marriage, refering to Paul's headship phrase in the bible, in Ephesians 5:23, as ''the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the Saviour of the body''. And many, especially some preachers have misunderstood the meaning and its implication to the point that they're exploiting it to their advantage in the marriage, meaning they're the Head of the wife.
Let me make it point blank here, No man is the Head of the woman, Paul was referring to the leadership role, which every organisation has to have to run the affairs properly; but the decision making is made by the group called the 'Board' and the leader of the board has to authorise implementation {putting a plan or decision in effect} The problem with the English language is that it is not blessed with rich amount of vocabulary as the Hebrew and Greek languages, which are the original manuscripts of the Bible, so sometimes the translators struggled to get concise words to represent actual phrases or words used in the original language.
Those who insist on that 'hardship' phrase must understand that the same apostle Paul wrote in Galatians 3:28, that in Christ there's no slave, free, male or female, Jew or Greek for we're all one: meaning positional level and ethnicity. No one is higher and better than the other.
What those who use this quote anyhow, tend to misunderstand is that Paul puts special distinction there in the phrase that ' Christ being the Head of the church is also the Saviour of the Body' meaning Christ is the ultimate head of the saved souls, because he died to save them. When has any man been able to save anyone? but himself, can any man sacrifice as Jesus did, to be the Head? No man can save any woman, in any aspect of life, Paul was just giving reference to men learning from how Christ leads the church, and he wasn't putting them on equal positional level with our Saviour. Therefore, women have every right in the marriage to discuss any issue going on, make decisions and bring it to the fore to be discussed, and she has every right to oppose any decision made by the 'macho' husband, and the decision has to be amended to suit everyone, because they're not Bosess, but leaders who lead to implement agreed decisions peroid!
Finance
This is also another controversial area that causes a lot of friction, the bible apportions role responsibilities in the relationship, right from the time marriage was instituted between Adam and Eve, it's the responsibility of the man to lead in the financial aspect of the family. It's the responsibility of the man to go out look for work to care for the family, and the responsibility of the woman to take care of the domestic issues, and also not restricted from working for money, the ideal wife the bible said in Proverbs 31, mentioned both domestic and entrepreneurship responsiblities. She can choose to work and make money, but her money is meant to be supplemental to the husband, and not the mainstay of the care of the family, that's the reason the bible calls women as HELPMEET, they help the leader in what he does. Today in many marriages the women are the breadwinners, against the tenent of scripture, and some men have the audacity to blame the women when their financial situation gets worse because the woman isn't providing, they complain.
Any man who isn't providing finacially for the family must be ashamed of himself! because you can't call yourself 'head' which you're not, but prefer to see yourself that way, but when it comes to the real definition of your responsibility you ignore it. Any man who isn't contributing or contributing enough financially because of any uncontrolled circumstance must bear the responsibility of the domestic chores, including washing dishes and cleaning around the house, which in a way could make up a little for the financial responsibility the woman is shouldering.
Sexual intimacy
Sexual intimacy in marriage for us Christians, is like our relationship with the Holy Spirit and Christ, our saviour. The holy spirit brings us closer to the inner sanctum { sacred place} of the throne of Christ to know the mysteries of the heavenly glory, to understand the true nature of Christ. Which human wisdom and ability wouldn't be able to understand, in order to know the personhood of Christ, as stated in John 1:14, as the word who became flesh and lived among us.
Our intimacy with the holy spirit makes us understand who we are in Christ, and the sacrifice he made on our behalf, and no wisdom can explain it,
Likewise, our sexual intimacy with our spouses, reveals the type of emotions that binds us together, and explains what type of love we have for each other.
I don't want to go too much on this because I'm writing a book on it, but what I will say is that the quality of your sexual intimacy could tell the type of person your spouse is in the relationship.
Sex is very important in a marriage, and not just the act of doing it, but the quality of it. You don't have to do it often to show quality, instead the preparation and understanding between the couples will determine the quality, even if its done once a while.
Sadly many churches don't talk about it, and therefore having 'sexual ignorant' members with dull sexual lives leading to many indulging in adultery, thinking different sexual partners would satisfy them instead of their own wives, and some leading to divorces. Some church leaders even think its an 'abomination' to teach about sex in the church.
After years of sitting down and studying this subject in the bible, I was blown away how permissive it is in the bible, for us to know about the quality of our sexual intimacy with our spouses. Many people blame the dullness of their sexual relationship on the age of the marriage, which according my study has nothing to do with it, but all to do with naivety.
The bible wants us to enjoy our sex life, and only in the consummated marriage. You can marry for however long and still enjoy good sex life, depending on your understanding and how much you work at it. God doesn't want to confine us into a boring lifeless sexual intimacy as a punishment, for being obedient to his command of one man and one wife principle.
In my previous marriage seminars I conducted by invitations in other churches, I was amazed at the level of ignorance among the members, and they themselves were amazed at the amount of information I gave them from the bible concerning it. Sex has to be enjoyed between the husband and the wife, and not just the husband alone, and ignore the need of the woman, as some men do, after they've had their release. All these attitudes tell the type of person the husband is, whether selfish or naive in that respect. And this is one of the issues I came accross in my seminars. At the moment this is how far I can go on this issue, any details have to come from my counselling session or teaching periods.
Heaven is too important to mess your marriage up, seek proper help!
Graham Bennett, 17/02/2016