That’s What Marriage is For
Most of us have known for a long time that God’s gift of marriage serves many purposes. It is a beautiful vehicle for intimate friendship, the opportunity to create new life, an advanced course in selflessness and learning to serve others, and a nurturing environment for children and family.
But a recent article on Islam turned on some light bulbs for me. Marriage is all of the above and more. But it is also a vital tool for world peace.
World peace? Isn’t that taking things a bit too far?
I don’t think so. I’ve had my “Aha” moment. World peace and stability.
That’s what marriage is for.
I don’t think it is a coincidence that after Genesis 1, which records the incredible, awesome, magnificent creation of the heavens and the earth, that Genesis 2 immediately records the importance of marriage to the overall creation.
Marriage seems to be the “key” to creation going well.
Of course, God-designed marriage is the joining together of a man and a woman into a relational and physical “oneness” that models the unity of the Trinity. That’s been the God-given definition of marriage for at least six thousand years.
Let’s take a moment to look at the passage that describes its origin: Genesis 2:18-24
“The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.”
“But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.”
“The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.’”
“That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.”
That’s God’s equation for marriage.
A couple things leap out here. First, man needed a woman to make him complete. She was designed to complement him, to make him whole. Second, the woman was made from the flesh of the man (the rib). British theologian John Stott believes that the essence of marriage is God re-uniting male and female flesh through sexual intercourse.
On a micro-scale, that makes a lot of sense. The natural draw of men and women is the desire to reunite maleness and femaleness into a newly constituted unity of life and purpose.
However, from a macro point of view– the big picture of things–maybe the institution of marriage was meant to accomplish a far greater purpose.
Social harmony. Stability. Order. Peace.
This lofty thought came after reading an article on the roots of Muslim Jihad. It’s worth sharing in its entirety.
Is Polygamy the Cause of Muslim Violence?
By: William Tucker
“Syria is submerged in civil war. The Sunni and the Shi’ia of Iraq are renewing their 1300-year-old conflict. Libyan rebels have shut down the nation’s oil industry. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been suppressed and is resorting to terrorism. Pakistan is a cauldron of violence and assassinations. In short, the Muslim world, as usual, is at war with itself.”
“This is not a contemporary phenomenon. Islam has been attacking its neighbors ever since the Prophet Mohammed received the Koran from the Angel Gabriel in the 7th century. Within 50 years of his death, Muslim armies had conquered the known world from Spain to Afghanistan. The Moguls invaded India, setting off a conflict that persists today. The Ottoman Empire besieged Europe for hundreds of years before its collapse in the 20th century. As historian Samuel Huntington has written, Islam has always had ‘bloody borders.’”
“Is there any explanation for this? Is it temperament or history? Is it the inevitable fight over scarce resources? Or, as Muslim cultures would insist, is it because Islam has always been surrounded by hostile neighbors?”
“In my book, Marriage and Civilization, I offer a novel explanation as to why Islam has always been at war with itself and others. It is because Islam it is the only major religious culture that embraces polygamy.”
“Polygamy? What does that have to do with anything? Am I suggesting that because some minor sheik outside Baghdad takes two wives, two young Muslim brothers in Massachusetts feel compelled to blow up the Boston Marathon?”
“Well, yes. In any human society there are approximately the same number of men and women. Under monogamy, which limits each man to one wife, everyone gets a fair chance to marry. When powerful and successful men are allowed to take more than one wife, however, as they are in a polygamous society, this creates a pool of unsuccessful men at the bottom of society who are constantly in conflict with the system.”
“The history of Islam has been one continuous story of rebel groups off in the desert and deciding that the religion being practiced by the authorities and their harems back in the cities is not the ‘true Islam.’ They come crashing back upon the palaces, overthrowing the leaders (no Ottoman Sultan ever died of natural causes) and establishing a new regime that is just like the old one, where powerful are allowed to take multiple wives.”
“The Prophet Muhammad had a novel solution to this problem. Go and conquer neighboring societies and requisition their women. If you die in the process, the reward will be even greater – 72 virgins waiting for you in heaven! ‘Jihad’ has been a clever and effective way of redirecting the hostilities of the ‘bachelor herd’ that polygamy inevitably produces.”
“The fruits of polygamy are visible all over the Middle East. Because women are always in short supply, families can charge a ‘bride price’ to any man who wants to marry their daughter. Because daughters are now worth money, they must be veiled and sequestered so they don’t run off with some callow youth. Older men desperate for wives push down into younger and younger cohorts of the population. Marriages between 35-year-old men and 13-year-old girls become common. (Muhammad’s last wife was age six.)”
“But the main product of polygamy is a population of angry young men who are ripe recruits for terrorism. The Koran supposedly limits a man to four wives but in countries where there are vast disparities of wealth this is routinely violated. Osama bin Laden’s father, a successful Saudi businessman, had 22 wives and 54 children. The unbalance between unmarried men and the available women in Saudi Arabia is the highest in the world. Is it any wonder that 15 of the 19 September 11th hijackers were Saudi nationals?”
“Ann Coulter once suggested that we would cure Muslim violence by converting the Islamic world to Christianity. This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. Christianity’s long enforcement of monogamous marriage has obviously played a critical role in establishing the more peaceful civilization of the West. The same can be said for China and India, where the vast majority adhere to monogamy. None of these cultures is plagued with the endless internal violence and outward aggression of Islam.”
“Converting the Muslim world to Christianity may be out of the question, but persuading it to give up polygamy on the grounds that it creates an inherently unstable society is a task that the rest of the world might be willing to undertake.”
I agree with everything Tucker postulates except the final paragraph. Ann Coulter is right. The key to eliminating Muslim violence in the world is the Good News of Christ which changes the heart and brings a human life into the blessings of God’s ways. One of those blessings is marriage–monogamy–and the peace and stablity it brings to human societies.
The most peaceful societies in the world are biblically based. Look at Europe, the Americas, Pacific Islands, and many other nations where the Good News has created marriages and cultures that create the greatest amount of peace possible in a fallen world.
Why?
Because marriage restrains sin through godly wives who keep men from giving in to their pugnacious natures.
This was a conclusion of Robert Bellah in his 1980s best-selling book Habits of the Heart. In his chapter called “Love and Marriage” Bellah explained that the genius of early America was the centrality of faith, marriage, family, and “superiority of the American women.”
Bellah quotes Alexis de Tocqueville, the French historian, who visited America during the 1930s: “[Christianity] reigns supreme in the souls of the women, and it is women who shape mores. Certainly of all countries in the world, America is the one in which the marriage tie is the most respected and where the highest and truest conception of conjugal happiness has been conceived.”
Bellah concluded what we men know from experience: Women are the superior sex and we desperately need their spiritual sensitivities to restrain our male excesses, guide and teach our children, provide an environment of love and nurture for the family–and in a phrase–keep the peace.
Is there any honest man out there that disagrees? Godly women are the fulcrum of stable families and nations. And it is the institution of marriage that ties us to their apron strings so that we don’t go off half cocked and destroy the planet.
Thirty years ago, in the margins of Bellah’s book, I wrote in my wife’s name–twice. Yes, I desperately need Shirley to bring peace, love, and unity to our home and family!
If we want peace on earth, less wars, and social stability, then godly women anchoring biblical marriages form the time-tested recipe for success.
God is awfully smart.
He knew that’s what marriage is for.
The Real War on Women
War has been with us as long as city/states have existed. Human beings fight because fallen people are selfish and like to conquer others.
Behind human wars is a satanic war mentioned in the Bible in Ephesians 6:12. Paul explains: “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
Recently, another kind of war has entered American politics called “The War on Women.” Progressive politicians have used this phrase in the past two election cycles to make it appear that conservatives and people of faith hate women and are trying to suppress them.
That’s not true–just like the promises of the Affordable Care Act (which is quickly becoming history’s most famous oxymoron).
Let’s discuss the real war on women taking place in America and around the world.
First, we must be clear that the so-called “War on Women” that Sandra Fluke and the 2012 Democratic Convention made famous is a crock that was cooked up to win votes.
Here are the facts: American single women tend to vote for liberal causes and American married women vote for conservative ones. This is understandable. In today’s world, single women are more dependent on government and more self-oriented in their lifestyles. Married women, with husbands and children in tow, possess greater family support and have learned through experience that life is not about them.
So, there is no “war” on American women in general. Single women lean left and married women lean right. Let’s get rid of the nonsense of an overarching “War on Women.”
But worldwide, and inspired by the satanic realm, there is a very real war against the female gender. This is the true war on women that we ought to be praying and fighting against.
I will list, in order of severity, the real war on women that we must engage and win.
1. The Abortion War
Modern-day abortion is, by far, the world’s greatest holocaust. In the past forty years, it is estimated that 27.5 million female unborn babies have been killed in the United States–never to see the light of day. That’s like systematically killing all the residents of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, San Jose, and Austin, Texas–the nation’s eleven largest cities.
Imagine the “fearfully and wonderfully made” women lost to American society whose beauty, creativity, mothering abilities and vocational gifts were lost to eternity on the pro-death altar of the sexual revolution.
And that’s just America. Possibly a half-a-billion to one billion women have been killed through the carnage of abortion worldwide. That’s like dropping atomic bombs on the entire continent of Africa and killing every single living person.
Abortion is the real war against women–and, of course, it includes an equal amount of men.
2. The Islamic War
There are about 50 Muslim nations in the world containing 2.3 billion followers of Islam. Let’s assume that 1.2 billion people in these nations are women, and that half of those women live in suppressive Muslim states (The Middle East and North Africa in particular).
So, today, in the modern world, at least a half a billion Muslim women live in subservient slavery where they are treated as property and sexual objects. That is the true state of Muslim women who live under the teachings of the Koran.
We might be able to excuse this type of authoritarianism if we read about it during the time of the Dark Ages or maybe fifteen hundred years ago when Islam began.
But in 2014? A half a billion Muslim women cover themselves from head-to-foot, are not allowed outside by themselves, do not go to school, are not allowed to drive, and are treated as a piece of meat by their husbands? In our time period?
This is shocking even to contemplate because the Western world has been blessed by the Christian worldview which gives equality of value of women and has liberated billions of women worldwide.
But not in Islam. Women are still in chains. Where is the outcry? Where is the tear-stained scream for justice and civil rights for the women living in oppressive Muslim states?
3. The Sex-Trafficking War
The U.S. State Department estimates that between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year. Eighty percent of those trafficked are women and girls, mostly for sexual exploitation. These figures overlook the millions more victims who are trafficked annually within their own national borders.
So, let’s say conservatively, that at least 480,000 women–really young girls–are used as sexual slaves for lusting men in the international arena each year. That’s equivalent to the entire city of Seattle being forced into prostitution. Those figures do not take into account the sexual slavery taking place within domestic borders.
Whichever figure you choose, the outcome is the same — far more women and girls are forced into brothels annually in the 21st century than African slaves were shipped into slave plantations each year in the 18th century.
Sex slavery is bigger today than racial slavery in the past. And the problem of sex slavery is getting worse. Trafficking for sexual exploitation is one of the fastest-growing organized crimes, generating $27.8 billion each year—most of it involving the abuse of women.
Sex-trafficking is certainly a satanic tactic to to hurt and destroy women.
4. The Inflation War
You may have never thought of this, but current American monetary policy is also a war on the female gender.
If you go back two generations, you find that a majority of women in American preferred spending most of their lives as wives and mothers who believed the greatest vocation was the care and nurturing of the family unit. Those generations were indeed blessed by the godly women who were not forced into the work world to provide for their families.
I grew up in the world of stay-at-home moms. My maternal mother was one. My mother-in-law was another. My wife also preferred to be a stay-at-home mom who tended the family fires and even home-schooled her six children.
The strength of America was built upon this foundation of many generations of stay-at-home mothering.
This changed when a Republican president, Richard Nixon, took America off of the gold standard in 1972. Then both Republican and Democratic administrations carelessly inflated the money supply for the next forty years. This caused the price of everything to rise–forcing many women into the work world where two incomes were required to pay the rising bills.
Most of us have never thought about the sudden emergence of two-income homes because it’s all we’ve ever known. Dad works and mom works (whether she wants to or not). But this is a recent phenomenon. Fifty years ago, only 7% of married women worked outside the home. Today, the number has “forcibly” risen to nearly 60%.
According to one study, about half (51%) of respondents say that children are better off if a mother is home and doesn’t hold a job. Nearly three-quarters of adults (74%) say the increasing number of women working for pay has made it harder for parents to raise children, and half say that it has made marriages harder to succeed.
Wrong-headed inflationary policies are another form of war on women in America.
5. The Hollywood War
A cultural dimension of the real war on women is the Hollywood-inspired portrayal of females as sex objects. For two hundred years of American history, the Proverbs 31 model of womanhood held the day where faith, chastity, hard work, and family were the bulwark upon which a great society was built.
But starting with Marilyn Monroe, and then exploding into the starlets, models, and porn stars of today, women have been relegated today to the status of sex toys to meet men’s lusts. This is a huge step backwards into the female slavery of the Dark Ages and Ancient Roman obsession with sex.
This is not liberation. It is a sexual targeting of women.
6. The Advertising War
Finally, the Hollywood stereotype of women has been fueled by modern-day advertisers. A false image of “beauty” has been forced down women’s throats, telling them they must have a certain hairstyle, curves, bikini-body, breast implants, or plastic surgery to “compete” in today’s oversexed world.
This is also a lie– an expensive and depressing one. A woman’s beauty is her uniqueness and godliness, not whether she looks like Marliyn Monroe or Scarlet Johansson.
How many women are beaten down today by the advertising hype? Probably millions. Or maybe, they’ve just given up. This is yet another form of the devil’s war on the female sex.
Conclusion
Let’s reject about the phony war on women and focus like a laser on fighting the real one.
- Give your effort and time to see the abortion holocaust halted (the repeal of Roe v. Wade).
- Pray for and share your faith with oppressed women in the Muslim world, believing that God can bring about an amazing deliverance.
- Support organizations that are freeing women from sex trafficking.
- Vote for political leaders who will restore us to sound monetary policy.
- Influence Hollywood to produce films that showcase Proverbs 31 women, not sluts.
- Reject the advertising lies, and encourage female freedom to be “beautiful in Christ.”
Yes, there is a global war on women (and human beings in general). We must know our true enemy. We must resist his fake rabbit trails and understand his actual strategies.
Let’s help liberate the women of the world.
What We Can Learn from the World Champion Seattle Seahawks
Allow me to to bask a few moments in the afterglow of Seattle’s first men’s professional sports championship in thirty-eight years.
Seattle Seahawks 43 – Denver Broncos 8.
I’ve gone full circle in sports enthusiasm in my lifetime. In my younger years, sports was an idol that I lived, slept, dreamt and loved far too much. After I became a disciple of Jesus, I ran to the other extreme and threw away all my athletic trophies and scrapbooks in a burst of religious zeal.
A few years back, God brought me to a place of wiser moderation. Jesus is the supreme love of my life and nothing takes His place in time, thought, commitment and passion. I can also enjoy watching the occasional sports contest with interest and enjoyment.
Superbowl 48–the most watched TV broadcast in American history–stimulated that kind of interest and joy. But it goes much deeper for me.
What can we learn from the World Champion Seattle Seahawks?
What We Can Learn from the Seahawks
1. Don’t believe the doubters. Seattle was recognized as a good team in 2013, and for much of the year stood at the top of the NFL Power Rankings. In December, their offense struggled and some analysts began to doubt their ability to go the distance.
Bookmakers made them underdogs in the Superbowl against the Broncos and their legendary quarterback, Peyton Manning. Most of the lead-up to the game appeared to be a coronation of the highly respected quarterback. Certainly Manning would cruise to victory and be hailed as the greatest NFL quarterback of all time.
Instead, the Seahawks defense refused to believe the headlines and shut him and the Broncos down.
We need to learn from them and suppress the satanic and human voices around us that tell us we’re not good enough. Don’t accept the doubts. Do your very best and leave the results to God, whether you’re a student, secretary, soldier, factory worker, CEO, or NFL quarterback. Put your trust in the One Who Can.
2. Faith has its rewards and blessings. Many of the Seahawks players profess faith in Christ and have put their trust in God to save them from their sins. That’s why you hear them “thank God” when they’re interviewed and point their hands toward heaven after touchdowns.
The Making of a Champion shares the faith-stories of a number of Seahawk players and coaches and openly invites the audience to get involved in a local church. Jesus is Bigger Than The Superbowl is an interview with Mars Hill pastor Mark Driscoll that reveals some Seahawks player’s supreme priority.
Faith in Jesus not only restores us to relationship with God, but brings many blessings to our lives. In fact, when you hear various Seahawks say to the cameras that they are “blessed” by what they’re doing, you’re listening to a code word that means that Jesus has given them strength, talents, and gifts in life that they know come from Him.
Every good gift comes from God (James 1:17). Faith brings inner hope, confidence, strong friendships, better marriages, comfort in sorrow and many other “blessings.”
Let the Seahawks’ players inspire you to live by faith.
3. Defense wins. It is an axiom in sports–that great defenses beat great offenses. The Seahawks/Broncos matchup was a test of this theory as Seattle possessed the number one defense in the NFL and the Broncos sported a record-setting number one offense.
Yet, many pundits chose the Broncos. Then the game began and the Seattle defense absolutely dominated up the Bronco Express. It wasn’t even close. After a couple quarters, it looked like the Bronco players were “hearing footsteps” every time they went for a catch. The defense won the day.
Defense is important in our lives too. God is our Rock–we must take shelter in Him. We need to put on the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness and take up the shield of faith daily against the attacks of the demonic world (Ephesians 6:13-17).
We, too, will conquer if we play good defense.
4. Character counts. This year’s Seattle Seahawks (with the exermption of the Richard Sherman rant) exemplified great character on and off the field.
Character is the sum total of your moral traits and include the attributes of love (1 Corinthians 13), the nine fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22,23), and many other godly qualities. 2 Peter 1:5-7 lists seven character traits including virtue, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, kindness and love.
Athletes who exhibit many of these qualities make tremendous role models for kids and people of all ages because of their notoriety. Let’s pray for professional athletes in all the fields of sport that they would be people whose lives are worthy of imitation.
5. Work hard. Seahawk quarterback Russell Wilson, at the ripe old age of 25, has already become famous for the saying “The separation is in the preparation.” Translation? Those who work diligently to be their best will distinguish themselves from those around them. Hard work is one of the primary tickets to success in a fallen world where we’re all competing for survival.
If you work hard like the Seahawks at what God has called you to do, you will also experience many triumphs. The Bible encourages us, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving ” (Colossians 3:23,24).
Let’s work hard for Jesus.
6. Use the talent God has given you. Sometimes when elite athletes talk about their skills (as when speaking to an audience of young people), they emphasize “going for your dreams, aiming for the top.” There’s nothing wrong with aiming high, but it comes with a caveat: it must be within the framework of the talent or gifts God has given you.
A wise and honest athlete once said, “You can’t put in what God has left out.” We must have a sober assessment of our talents, both athletically and professionally and then strive to do the best with what God has given us.
We all have special talents, aptitudes, motivations and desires. Find your own, be realistic about God has given you, and use those talents to the best of your ability. When you do, your successes will be just as satisfying as athletes winning the Superbowl.
7. Give God the glory. I loved it on Sunday night when numerous Seahawk players began their after-game interviews with a quick and hearty nod to God. The same thing took place at the NFL Honors banquet the night before. Almost every player chosen for a prestigious award began his acceptance speech with a heart-felt “I thank to God” before going on to mention parents, coaches, and others.
That little phrase tells you alot about a person. They know who their source is. They are grateful to the Person who really gets credit for their ability.
In the famous Chariots of Fire movie, American sprinter Jackson Schultz hands Eric Liddell (The Flying Scot) a folded note before he runs one of the biggest races of his life. It reads, “He who honors Me, him will I honor” (1 Samuel 2:30).
When we give glory to God, He turns around and honors us in multitudes of ways. Be sure to give God the glory for the accomplishments and blessings of your own life.
8. Aim, high and shoot long. Russell Wilson told many audiences this week that he went to last year’s Superbowl as a spectator to learn about how to get there. Then he and the other Seahawks set their bar high to aim at winning the pinnacle prize of American football.
Over our lifetime we need to set goals for how God wants to use our lives. We need to “aim high” (don’t settle for the mediocre) and then “shoot long”–in other words, have the tenacity to look long range and never give up.
Are you aiming high in your life goals? Are you willing to pursue them for years to the glory of your Creator?
9. Be humble and give others the credit. This was one of the clearest testimonies of the Seahawk triumph. Player after player deflected the attention off of themselves to their other teammates. Seahawks coach Pete Carroll was especially good at this–giving praise to all of his players and lifting up the value of “team” above individuals.
It was hard to choose the Superbowl 48 MVP. Russell Wilson, Kam Chancellor, Percy Harvin, or the entire Legion of Boom all qualified! The award went to unsung hero Malcolm Smith who quietly accepted the thanks–and then immediately gave credit to his teammates.
That’s the power of humility–team–thinking of others. It’s a beautiful thing to behold, and also gives glory to God.
10. Don’t give up–persevere to the end. The Seahawks played a very steady game in Superbowl 48 which proved they were the best football team in the NFL. But to get there, they had to survive many epic battles, close shaves–even a rally from twenty-one points behind in one game.
Life is lived best by those who endure and don’t give up. They get knocked down, they look like they’re out, but somehow they muster the strength (in God and his grace) to trudge to the finish line.
It’s one thing to persevere in an athletic contest. It’s even more important to do so in your marriage, family, spiritual and business life.
In summary, I’m grateful to the Seahawks for bringing Seattle a championship after nearly a forty year drought. But I’m even more excited about the faith, humility, teamwork, and other character qualities that allowed this team to reach the top of their trade.
Let’s learn from the Seahawks and do likewise. That will make each of us champions in the ultimate game of life.