Unfortunately it seems that Jesus really said very
little, and when he did, he wasn’t always enthusiastically positive… And as for
a consistent view of marriage, the Bible isn’t exactly clear. Many Christians
like to back up their own views and prejudices with what they think Jesus said…
or what they think the Bible says. And often they turn to verses that don’t
even relate to marriage… Paul’s letter to the Corinithians chapter 13 is often
read at weddings – ‘’Love is patient, love is kind’ etc… But he wasn’t
referring to personal relationships… he was helping to resolve a conflict
within the church to whom he was writing!
Not only did Jesus choose not to marry, he encouraged
his followers to leave household and domestic concerns in order to follow him
(Mark 10:28-30). He even refers to those "who have made themselves eunuchs
for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 19:10-13). Whatever that
means, it's certainly not an endorsement of marriage.
And in Matthew chapter 22, he says that in the age to
come, ‘people will neither marry nor be given in marriage’… If the age to come
is the perfection of a new heaven
and earth, then this perfect world doesn’t seem to include marriage…
His only real directive was to tell people that were
already married ideally not to divorce (Matthew 19:4-9) – hardly encouraging a
rush for people to get married.
Paul says that marriage can be a hindrance and that
it’s better not to marry (1 Corinthians 7:27) - advice Paul took for himself,
by all accounts never being married.
If neither Jesus nor Paul preferred marriage for their
followers, why do some Christians maintain that the Bible enshrines
19th-century Victorian family values? Are all of our positive views of marriage
based on what Jesus and the Bible actually say, or on a Hollywood romanticized view
of love? Maybe it’s time to take another look…
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