This Momentary Marriage
Thursday, April 15th, 2010
. . . and we pledge that we will pray for you. We have hope in our sovereign God.
The following quote from The Confessions of Saint Augustine is something singles and parents in American culture need to keep in mind. The culture Augustine grew up in was very different from American culture yet also quite similar. The major difference with respect to marriage was it wasn’t uncommon for marriages to be arranged. The major similarity was marriage was sometimes delayed to pursue other things. (As you read this also take note of the unadulterated Christian hedonism of Augustine.)
Now I want to call to mind the foul deeds I committed, those sins of the flesh that corrupted my soul, not in order to love them, but to love you, my God. Out of love for loving you I do this, recalling my most wicked ways and thinking over the past with bitterness so that you may grow ever sweeter to me; for you are a sweetness that deceives not, a sweetness blissful and serene. . . .
From the mud of my fleshly desires and my erupting puberty belched out murky clouds that obscured and darkened my heart until I could not distinguish the calm light of love from the fog of lust. The two swirled about together and dragged me, young and weak as I was, over the cliffs of my desires, and engulfed me in a whirlpool of sins. . . .
Who was there to alleviate my distress? No one took thought to arrange a marriage for me, so that my pursuit of fleeting beauties through most ignoble experiences might be diverted into useful channels. Some bounds might have been set to my pleasures if only the stormy surge of my adolescence had flung me up onto the shore of matrimony. . . .
But I was far too impetuous, poor wretch, so I went with the floodtide of my nature and abandoned you. I swept across all your laws, but I did not escape your chastisements, for what mortal can do that? You were ever present to me, mercifully angry, sprinkling very bitter disappointments over all my unlawful pleasures so that I might seek a pleasure free from all disappointment. . . . Yet none of my family made any attempt to avert my ruin by arranging a marriage for me; their only concern was that I should learn to excel in rhetoric and persuasive speech. . . .
My natural mother had by this time fled from the center of Babylon, though she still lingered in its suburbs. She warned me to live chastely, but did not extend her care to restraining within the bounds of conjugal love (if it could not be cut right back to the quick) this behavior of mine, of which she had heard from her husband, even though she judged it to be corrupt already and likely to be dangerous in the future. Her reluctance to arrange a marriage for me arose from the fear that if I were encumbered with a wife my hope could be dashed—not in you for the world to come, to which she held herself, but my hope of academic success. Both my parents were very keen on my making progress in study: my father because he thought next to nothing about you and only vain things about me; and my mother, because she regarded the customary courses of studies as no hindrance, and even a considerable help, toward my gaining you eventually. . . . Throughout these experiences a dark fog cut me off from your bright truth, my God, and my sin grew sleek on my excesses (Confessions: Book II, emphasis mine).
Compare Augustine’s words to the words of Paul:
Because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. . . . To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion (1 Corinthians 7:2,8-9).
The average age of a person at the time of his first wedding in the US is 26. Augustine was between the ages of 14 and 16 in the period of his life described above for which he lamented his parents had not arranged him a marriage.
I do not think marriage should be considered normative for Christians in the time since Jesus’ resurrection. Nor is singleness normative. Each is a gift. But woe to those who aren’t given the gift of celibacy (1 Corinthians 7:6-7); America is a dangerous place to grow up.
John Piper recently answered questions from singles at his church. This is worth listening to.
Loading...
Josh Harris shared some of the things he’s learned in the years since he wrote I Kissed Dating Goodbye:
I still stand by the message of that book that premature, short-term romantic attachments can be a big distraction from serving God—especially for teenagers. But in the years since I’ve also seen that a legalistic application of these ideas can be unhelpful, too. One of my main concerns in my church or any other church is that there be no disunity among Christians over issues of dating and courtship. We need to learn to hold our own convictions on this matter with charity.
Loading...
Is it biblical to think that physical attraction must be a component of a godly marriage?
No, I don’t think it is biblical to think that way. And I don’t think it’s rational to think that way either.
It would have two implications:
- No homely people, no plain people, would get married.
- Those who get married when they are pretty, and then change when they get old—lose their hair, get wrinkles, and get flabby—would fall out of love and would have no good marriages anymore.
I mean, that’s just ridiculous. And yet I suppose the question is asked because there is such an emphasis, I guess, in our culture that if you don’t look really attractive you’re probably not going to get married. If you don’t look really attractive, you’re probably going to cause your wife or husband to go looking for somebody else. . . .
I think when Jesus looks at us, if he doesn’t look at us in himself, he’s not going to be excited about this marriage feast at the end of the age.
The word “biblical” in this question is perhaps intended to take me to a text. And of course the text that comes to mind is, when it speaks to beauty, 1 Peter 3:3: “Don’t let your beauty be the outward beauty of the wearing of gold, and the braiding of hair, and the wearing of clothes.”
It doesn’t say “fine clothes.” It’s just “clothes,” so you know it’s not an absolute, as though not wearing clothes is a good thing. It means the jewelry, the hair, and the clothes are not the focus. And our culture needs to hear that unbelievably. Marriages need to hear it, men need to hear it. That’s not the main focus of beauty. The focus should be the inner spirit (John Piper).
Commenting on Romans 5:3-5, Augustine said,
Who can hurt such a man? Who can subdue him? In prosperity he makes moral progress, and in adversity he learns to know the progress he has made. When he has an abundance of mutable goods he does not put his trust in them, and when they are taken away he gets to know whether or not they have taken him captive (Of True Religion).
O how easy it is to be taken captive by an abundance of mutable goods. And O how abundant everything is in America. As any good Presbyterian, I love Christian freedom. But I’ve found myself using it as an excuse to ignore the massive problems in my heart by not denying myself those things which hold me captive and simply waving the banner of Romans 14 over my idols.
The following video is for my own encouragement. It’s too easy for me to forget the cross when I’m surrounded by Disneyland.
Loading...
