"You shall not commit adultery" (Exodus 20:14).
IDEA: Christian marriage is a contract, but it is more than a contract.
PURPOSE: To help listeners think about the commitments made in Christian marriage.
Is marriage primarily a religious or a civil institution?
I. When you think of marriage customs in other parts of the world, are they primarily religious or primarily civil?
In Chinese law for 4,000 years, it was neither religious or civil; it was arranged between families who agreed on when the marriage would take place. Now the government has established who can get married at what age, and divorce is an option.
In Russia, the law stipulated that a wife should love her husband and show “boundless compliance” to him. The laws now are that persons entering marriage must sign three statements:
In European countries, it is a civil relationship. For Christian couples, the service in a church following the civil ceremony in the mayor’s office, is the blessing on the marriage.
In the early USA, civil marriage was authorized and required in all the New England colonies. John Milton wrote a tract denouncing the meddling clergy in divorce. In Puritan New England for many years the celebration of a marriage before clergy was illegal. The dual systems arose at the close of the colonial period. Common-law marriages are still recognized in 21 states, in which you don’t need any kind of ceremony: a legal marriage is constituted by verbal agreement to live together.
Is there any demand by the civil government that the minister report what he has asked the couple to promise?
Could a lawyer for one of the parties sue the other one because they had made a contract at the marriage altar and the lawyer was going to examine the contract closely in order to hold the other party responsible?
While the marriage is a legal arrangement, for Christians it is more that simply a contract.