CHRISTIAN MARRIAGE
Marriage for
Christian has a special significance, because it is related to the spiritual
union between Christ and His church (Ephesians 5:32). When Jesus walked on the earth,
He blessed marriage at the time of His first miracle (John 2:1-11). Jesus also
announced the beginning of the kingdom of God. Therefore, we should expect a
new relationship between husbands and wives. Paul said that there is neither Jew
nor Greek, slave nor free ,male nor female ,for you are all one in Christ Jesus
( Galatians 3:28). Does this mean that the husband and wife are also equal in
their marriage?
All Christians agree
that husbands and wives are equal in sexual relations. Paul clearly stated that
they both should fulfill their marital duty to each other (1 Corinthians 7:3).
He wrote that the wife’s body does not belong to her alone but also to her
husband (1 Corinthians 7:4), This was nothing new to the people of Paul’s day;
from the time of Adam and Eve to Paul’s time the world has considered the wife
to be the property of her husband. But Paul didn’t stop with only that
statement. In the same verse he went on to say that, in the same way, the
husband’s body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. This teaching
was totally new to Paul’s first-century readers. Further, Paul taught that
husbands and wives should never refuse to satisfy each other’s sexual desires,
except by mutual consent and for a time so that they might devote themselves to
prayer (1 Corinthians 7:5). Some religions teach that the wife is like a “garden”
in which the husband plants his seed. But in a Christian marriage the wife is a
full partner in the relationship, not just a piece of property. Christian
marriage is a partnership. To be continued...
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