July 5 – Marriage Honored – Part 2

      1 Corinthians 5:15f – "What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside [the church]?"

        It is a fantastic event when two people get married. A wedding is always a joyous occasion, with solemn vows exchanged, and feasting and dancing enjoyed by family and friends. We honor God, when we recognize his first institution, and follow its model, with its holy promise, love – and boundaries.

        When I see a so-called believer, whom I knew somewhat in years past, shack up with his/her soulmate, it pains my heart, knowing that God's commands toward fornication are not respected. The living together is sometimes a matter of convenience, while most of the time it is clearly a matter of selfishness. The question one should ask is: "Whom do I want to please today, and always, with my life and its actions – me or God?" Even if there is not sex involved in the living arrangements, the very appearance of evil negates that fact in the eyes of everyone (1 Thess. 5:22; 2 Corinthians 8:19-21). So, when I get a wedding invitation from someone who has been shacking up, I experience two emotions. The first emotion is gladness, for the fact that the persons are correcting the external appearance – the outward arrangement of marriage. The second emotion is stunted joy. You are asking me to help celebrate your sacred union on your wedding day, even though you have already disrespected the sacredness of that union. If you couldn't wait to consummate your relationship, then why should I celebrate months later, after the fact? To me, it takes the "punch" right out of the party!

        Well, you might say, "Wait a minute! Are you not acting like the brother of the prodigal son?" Perhaps, but, I have been to a few weddings of people who had shacked up previously. None of them contained confessions of repentance for actual or possible sinfulness. The story of the prodigal son contained real and voiced repentance.

        The verse above comes at the end of a fairly short argument by the Apostle Paul regarding a self-called believer in the Corinthian body of Christ, who was knowingly having an affair with his father's 2^nd wife (not the man's mother). It was public knowledge, and deemed to be okay, probably due to the tacit response of the church's leadership. To Paul, this seems to be an obvious case of blatant sin, being allowed to continue with nothing said, and thus being the leaven that works itself through the rest of the dough, in which it comes into contact. In other words, its tacit allowance causes the spiritual culture around it to be influenced – in a negative way.

        Today, in 2018 in the western world, it is quite common for couples to live together before they get married, if they ever do get married. In the eyes of the world, marriage is growing ever un-sacred. Bad turns to worse progressively – which is not a surprise. It should not be so for the body of Christ. We are the light of the world, and should act accordingly to help a dying world see that it is living in the dark. God calls us out of the world's system to be different, to be set apart from cultural norms when they go against God's commands, ways, and model of living. We must be different on purpose in order to not let the evil leaven to work its subconcious ways in our lives.