No 35: To Give Marriage its Deepest Meaning

I have heard my wife Susan say a number of times that if a husband really loved his wife like Christ does, no wife would have any difficulty submitting to him!  Piper's final paragraph is a moving expression of what that might look like.

But marriage is also an institution which fits into the larger picture of a society, whose culture defines roles permitted to men and women, and deemed acceptable.  Across a huge range of historical time and cultural variety, the Bible records the engagement of the people of God with the different cultures it lived amongst or was influenced by - from earliest tribal matriarchy to the dominance of patriarchy, from the family clan culture of Abraham to Egypt, Canaan, Babylon, then back to the Land of Israel but soon influenced by Greece and then Rome.  St Paul, of course, was writing to people living in Hellenistic culture, and in the international language which it spread, Greek.

So Paul teaches practically.  He doesn't decry slavery: he advises how both slave-owner and slave may engage with that social institution in a godly way.  I think the consensus among Christians is now universal that slavery falls far short of the dignity of God's image, and Christian-influenced cultures have banned it.  But when the campaigns against it began in the 18th and 19th century, Christians lined up on both sides of the argument, because slave-owners could point to Scripture and say "The Bible clearly teaches it".  And it does! 

Nor does St Paul decry patriarchy.  He may not have been able to imagine an alternative - just as no-one could imagine an economy without slaves at that time.  But the Kingdom of God "advances" (Matthew 11:12), and the leavening of God's word has brought about huge cultural changes since that day.  The issue of slavery has been settled, after a long struggle.  Our culture has been engaged in a similar, now century-old struggle over the equal standing of men and women as the image of God.  Some hold fast to the prescriptions in Scripture from past, vanished cultures; others respond to the advancing direction of the Holy Spirit, Who is always changing us and changing our societies.  By faith, they are building a future society which reflects more closely the promise that "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28).

Transitional times are always confusing to live through.  Jesus places great importance on "interpreting the signs of the times" (Matthew 16:3), so it is apparently possible for us to do that.  But prophets can get it wrong too.  Ultimately, as it says somewhere in the Bible (my readers, help me out here!) the test of a prophecy is if it turns out to be true.  I am personally at confident rest within my heart and mind that the day will come when the consensus among Christians is universal that no area of service is barred to women.  Christian marriages will become beautiful expressions of this new, fuller life for all God's children.