Marriage

We are going to spend Nov 15 and Nov 29 digging into the back end of Ephesians 5.  Here are some things to think about as you prepare for Sunday.

1. First, we are a diverse community of people who have never married, people who are married, people who were married, and people who are married again.  All of us have strongly-held convictions about the institution in general and even this passage in particular.  Regardless of your marital demographic label, we all need to know what we think about marriage.  It is my hope to give you some tools to think Biblically and rightly about the covenant of marriage.  So if you are not currently married, don’t check out, this content is for you as well.
2. Secondly, because marriage has universal impact (even if you are not married, you are touched by the institution), we all have emotions of sadness and emotions of joy that are connected to it.  I know.  It’s highly emotionally charged.
3. Thirdly, 2 weeks is not enough time to unpack the riches of this passage alone, much less articulate a full Biblical theology of marriage–  I mean, Paul says it’s merely a metaphor for the entire way Christ relates to the church (for crying out loud!!)  So I will focus on 2 things:  What does it mean that a husband and wife are one flesh?  What are the roles/ instructions for wives and husbands. This week we will talk about the implications of cleaving of becoming one flesh.  In two weeks we will talk about submission, authority, love, and respect.
4. Fourthly, as I have said before, ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’  Nothing I say in this series is original to me–  the apostle Paul took the first shot and lots of preachers after him have done a great job making these truths come alive.  I am particularly grateful to thoughts that were crafted by Tim Keller, Bill Hybels, Emerson Eggerichs, and Kyle Miller.  These guys have some fantastic insights.

All right, that’s all the caveats, disclaimers, and hedging I’ll do…  probably.  See you on Sunday as we get after it.