Is Love Enough? Why Shared Faith Matters in Marriage
To build a life together that glorifies God, we need a spouse who shares our faith.
Marriage was God’s idea. Sex within marriage was God’s idea. The Bible tells us that marriage is so profound and wonderful that it unites a man and a woman at the depth of their being (Gen 2:24), and it is meant to be a symbolic display of the glorious relationship between Jesus Christ and the Church (Eph 5:31–32). Contrary to a secular conception of marriage which includes only two parties, Christian marriage includes a third party, God Himself. Because a Christian’s life is meant to glorify God in whatever one does (1 Cor 10:31), marriage should also glorify God.
This is why the Gospel is the foundation of our understanding about this subject; if we have encountered God in the Gospel, it means that our hearts have been transformed so that we now desire every aspect of life to be yielded to God, including our choice of a marriage partner. What we discover in the Scriptures is that both in the Old and New Testament, God’s people are commanded to choose marriage only with a person who belongs to God. Plainly speaking, Christians should only marry another Christian.
The issue of “who to marry” is not race, but religion. Moreover, the issue is not nominal/cultural religion, but actual faith and a life that reflects that faith. Christians need to choose a marriage partner who professes Christ and lives for Christ in every aspect of life.
The deeper problem among God’s people had always been idolatry whereas God’s priority was pure worship; therefore, the foundational reason for choosing a spouse who worships the LORD is so that the follower of God would remain faithful in his or her worship.
The Apostle Paul writes that “A wife is bound to her husband as long as he lives. But if her husband dies, she is free to be married to whom she wishes, only in the Lord” (1 Cor 7:39). We should pause and be amazed by the fact that in God’s sovereignty, he gives an unmarried Christian a choice to marry “whom she wishes”; God gives us the freedom to choose our spouse. However, the condition is that such a prospect must be “in the Lord.”
Furthermore, God’s will for marriage is that families would produce “godly offspring” who would be devoted to loving, obeying and worshipping the LORD (Mal 2:15). It is the role of both parents to raise their children to worship God (Eph 6:4; Deut 6:7–9). God’s intent in marriage for godly offspring relates to the priority of Christians finding a spouse who also worships and serves God.
Since you have trusted God with your eternal life, will you also trust God with your love life?