Marriage Matters

How marriage and the Bible shed light on each other

03/30/2023

Gn 17:3-9 When Abram prostrated himself, God spoke to him: "My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations. No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you. I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. I will give to you and to your descendants after you the land in which you are now staying, the whole land of Canaan, as a permanent possession; and I will be their God." God also said to Abraham: "On your part, you and your descendants after you must keep my covenant throughout the ages."

A couple of weeks ago I gave a marriage enrichment retreat at St. Raphael Church in Springdale. The topic was about how marriage and the Bible shed light on each other. That is, the more and better you understand your marriage, the better you will understand the Bible and what is going on in the Bible. And the better you study and understand the Bible, the better you will live your marriages. They are mutually enlightening; they shed light on each other.

The opposite, sadly, is also true. If you struggle to understand the real meaning of marriage (what does it mean to be married?), then you will struggle to understand the meaning of the Bible. And vice versa: if you don’t get the real sense of the Bible, you will not be able to make heads or tails of the sacrament of marriage. And so it is very important to study both sides of the equation.

Do you recall equations in algebra in high school? There are two sides, and an “equal sign” that links the two sides, and holds the two sides together. And that equal sign that holds both sides together is the word and concept of “covenant.” We heard “covenant” twice in the first reading today from Genesis 17. God said, “I will make a covenant with you, Abraham, and with your descendants.”

Now that word covenant can help us understand both sides of the equation: what is going on in the Bible, and what is going on in your marriages. One of the things I tried to do in that retreat was to emphasize that the word “covenant” is interchangeable with the word “marriage.” Now a covenant is like a marriage.

So, when God says to Abraham “I am going to make a covenant with you,” he means “I am going to marry you and your descendants.” In other words, my relationship with you is not that of a master to a slave. Rather, I want to relate to you as a husband to a wife. When God makes a covenant with us, he wants to marry us, because that’s how much he loves us.

And that is why the word covenant is so crucial, to help us see how the Bible and marriages shed light on each other. A covenant is like a marriage, and it is very different from a contract. Sometimes we are tempted to think a covenant is basically a contract. But it is wildly different. A covenant is as different from a contract as marriage is from prostitution. I am sorry to use such a vulgar example, but I wanted to wake you up.

In a covenant, you exchange persons: I give you myself, you give me yourself. In a contract, on the other hand, we exchange goods and service. I will provide this service, and you will pay me for it. How do we understand our marriages then? As a covenant or a contract? And of course, in a contract, there are two parties who mutually agree to fulfill the terms of the contract, or they mutually decide to go their separate ways, and break the contract. I sometimes wonder if that is how we generally understand our marriages, and why we divorce.

Another difference between a covenant and a contract (besides being like a marriage or prostitution), is that the primary actor, the primary agent, of a covenant is God, and not human beings. That is why, therefore, that God said to Abraham in Genesis 17, “I will make a covenant with you.” That is, I (God) am the principal agent of this agreement. So, too, in marriage. When you get married, it is not just something two people do.

Because marriage is a covenant, it is something God does. And that is why Jesus said, “What God joins together, no human beings must separate.” In other words, I don’t care how big your biceps are, you are not going to be able to tear apart what God puts together. Or, did we really think a marriage is more like a contract that we human beings put together. I am the primary agent, so if I choose to break the contract, I have the power, since I put it together.

Of course, I say all this with great sympathy and compassion for people who struggle with their marriages (which means everyone!). And I know a lot of people do. Nevertheless, that is what is going on in the Bible: God wants to marry us. And that is what is going on in your marriages, they are covenants created by God. And that may be why we struggle so much to understand both.

Praised be Jesus Christ!