Marriage Matters - Softcover

Tony Evans

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802411541 ISBN 13: 9780802411549

Publisher: Moody Publishers, 2014

Synopsis

"Most people today view marriage as a means of looking for love, happiness, and fulfillment. Make no mistake about it, those things are important. Those things are critical. They are just not the most critical."<br/>--Tony Evans

Marriage Matters paints a picture of what it means to have a happy marriage--as God defines happiness. By examining the nature of the covenant and the purpose of marriage, Tony Evans gives steps to developing and maintaining a healthy relationship.

In his approachable style, Dr. Evans explains the origins, order, and operation of marriage in its relation to Scripture. If the profound fruits of your marriage have turned into something mundane, or the validity of the covenant of marriage eludes you, then join Tony Evans in figuring out why Marriage Matters.

About this title

About the Author

DR. TONY EVANS is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative, former chaplain of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys, and present chaplain of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. His radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, can be heard on over 1,200 US radio outlets daily and in more than 130 countries. Dr. Evans launched the Tony Evans Training Center in 2017, an online learning platform providing quality seminary-style courses for a fraction of the cost to any person in any place. The goal is to increase Bible literacy not only in lay people but also in those Christian leaders who cannot afford nor find the time for formal ongoing education. For more information, visit: http: //www.TonyEvans.org.

From the Back Cover

Marriage Matters paints a picture of what it means to have a happy marriage—as God defines happiness. By examining the nature of the covenant and the purpose of marriage, Tony Evans gives steps to developing and maintaining a healthy relationship.

In his approachable style, Dr. Evans explains the origins, order, and operation of marriage in its relation to Scripture. If the profound fruits of your marriage have turned into something mundane or the validity of the covenant of marriage eludes you, then join Tony Evans in figuring out why Marriage Matters.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Marriage Matters

By Anthony T. Evans, Christopher Reese

Moody Publishers

Copyright © 2014 Anthony T. Evans
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-8024-1154-9

Contents

Introduction, 
1. Transcendence: The Origin of Marriage, 
2. Hierarchy: The Order of Marriage, 
3. Ethics: The Operation of Marriage, 
Appendix: The Urban Alternative, 
Notes, 

CHAPTER 1

TRANSCENDENCE: THE ORIGIN OF MARRIAGE

For far too many people, the subject of marriage is like a three-ring circus. First, there is the engagement ring. Next comes the wedding ring. Then, there is suffering.

One lady said that she got married because she was looking for the ideal but it quickly turned into an ordeal, and now she wants a new deal. One man said that he and his wife were happy for twenty years ... and then they got married.

Many people today are disappointed with marriage. They wake up one morning only to discover that the reality they live in looms far from what they had once dreamt or imagined. Because of this, some are getting out of marriage almost as quickly as they got into it.

On top of that, the breakup of a marriage these days doesn't seem to carry the same gravity that it did in the past. So-called "no-fault" divorces offer the option of an amicable split. My question is, if things are so amicable, then why not stay married? What we are experiencing today is the ending of marriages without even a hint of remorse.

It reminds me of a guy who went to the Super Bowl. The stadium was packed, but the seat next to him sat empty. The man behind him questioned him about the empty seat. He answered, "That seat was for my wife. She would have been here, but she died."

The other man offered his condolences and asked him if he didn't have a friend that he could have asked to come with him rather than let the seat remain empty. The man replied, "I do, but all my friends said they wanted to go to the funeral instead."

Now, I realize I'm making light of a weighty subject, but I'm doing so to illustrate how the seriousness of the wedding vows seems to no longer be honored. Statistics remind us what we already know, either from personal experience or from our friends, and that is that over 50 percent of all marriages will end in divorce. Over half of all promises made that "until death do us part" get broken.

Because of this, what I would like to examine is the nature of the agreement we make when we get married. If we do not understand this agreement, then we will not be prone to protect it. What's even worse is that neither will we be apt to benefit from it.

One day a boy lost one of his contact lenses. He spent a significant amount of time trying to locate it, but he couldn't. Eventually, he told his mom. The boy's mom began looking for the contact lens with him and found it in only a matter of minutes. The boy asked, "How could you find that contact lens in just a few minutes when I must have looked for twenty minutes?"

The mom said, "That's easy. You didn't find it because you were looking for a contact lens. I found it because I was looking for two hundred and fifty dollars."

It all depends on how you view it.

Our marriages today are deteriorating at such a high rate, not because we no longer get along, but because we have lost sight of the purpose and prosperity of the marriage covenant.

Most people today view marriage as a means of looking for love, happiness, and fulfillment. Make no mistake about it, those things are important. Those things are critical. They are just not the most important, or the most critical. Yet because we have made second things first, as important as second things are, we are having trouble finding anything at all.

Marriage is a covenant. It is a covenantal union designed to strengthen the capability of each partner to carry out the plan of God in their lives. Marriage matters.

GOD'S DESCRIPTION OF MARRIAGE

Let's begin by looking at Malachi. In the book of Malachi, God is complaining against His people because they have wandered away from Him. They have taken a detour from God's plan for their lives.

One of God's complaints is found in chapter 2, verses 13 and 14. We read,

This is another thing you do: you cover the altar of the Lord with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. Yet you say, "For what reason?" Because the Lord has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant.

Did you catch that? The passage specifically identifies marriage as a "covenant." The term "covenant" used to be regularly attached to the concept of marriage. The word has gotten lost in our contemporary language, but it is the biblical description of marriage used throughout Scripture.

The problems come when we don't realize that marriage is a covenant, nor do we know what a covenant is. Because if we do not know what a covenant is, then we do not know what we are supposed to have, develop, or protect over time. It's like trying to hit a bull's-eye without a target.

For most people, a covenant is simply some sort of formal contractual arrangement. While this is true about the nature of a covenant, a covenant is also much more than that. In the Bible, a covenant is a spiritually binding relationship between God and His people inclusive of certain agreements, conditions, benefits, and effects.

Whenever God wanted to formalize His relationship with His people, He would establish a covenant. There are a number of these agreements in the Bible such as the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the new covenant. These are formal arrangements that are spiritually binding in a legal capacity between God and His people.

Marriage is another form of a covenant that God has established.

What we are going to do throughout this and the remaining chapters is to delve deeper into the purpose and practical aspects of marriage, as well as the three fundamental facets that make up a covenant: transcendence, hierarchy, and ethics.

If you can grab, own, and apply these truths in your life, you will have a God-centered perspective on marriage that can impact not only the rest of your life but future generations to come.

FIRST COVENANT FACET: TRANSCENDENCE

The first facet of a covenant is a big theological word called transcendence. (We'll cover the other two facets, hierarchy and ethics, in later chapters.) Transcendence simply means that God is in charge. Covenants are both initiated and ruled by God.

Now, that might seem like an obvious statement and one that we don't need to spend too much time on, but transcendence is a key principle in a covenant. In order for a covenant to successfully function, carrying with it both the benefits and security that a covenant supplies, it has to be set up according to God's expectations and regulations.

Covenants can never operate without the ongoing involvement of God. Biblical, spiritual, and theological covenants assume God's integration into every aspect of the covenantal relationship in order for that covenant to work.

When the practical realities of God are dismissed from the marital covenantal relationship, it becomes an invitation to the Devil to create havoc in the home. This happens because there has been a departure from transcendence.

Since God is ultimately in charge of the covenant of marriage, the first place to look to gain insight into the makings of a purposeful marriage is God's viewpoint on marriage.

GOD'S PERSPECTIVE ON MARRIAGE

Most people learn about marriage from an illegitimate source. They learn about marriage from the television, their friends, or the home that they grew up in. If you grew up in a functioning home, then that would be fine. But many did not, so the home—along with the media and friends—often merge together to form a distorted perspective on the covenant of marriage.

Without a divine frame of reference, we will stray from God's formula for a healthy, productive relationship. What is this divine frame of reference? God, as far back as in the garden of Eden, gave us His perspective through the very first marriage.

One of the rules of studying the Bible is called the Law of First Mention. The Law of First Mention simply states that if you want to see what God says about a matter, look at the first time He brings it up. You do this because the first time He brings it up will typically tell you how He thinks about it. Everything else will build on that first time. While it may add to it or expand it, it doesn't cancel out His first mention unless He says that it does at a later point.

Marriage starts off in the book of Genesis. Before there was sin, there was marriage. Marriage was put in a sinless environment created by God. It was put there for a purpose, which we will discover as we dig deeper into the opening chapters.

"LET THEM RULE"

Looking at the book of Genesis in chapter 1, we read that God has been very active creating many different things. He has created the heavens and the earth in such a way that they are functional, vibrant, and pulsating with life.

On the fifth day, God formed the creatures that would live upon the earth. Then on the sixth day, He came to the paramount of His creation purposes—the creation of mankind.

Let's look at a few verses in Genesis chapter 1. We read,

Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." (vv. 26–28)

A number of things come out in verse 26. First, we see the word "Us" referring to the Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit. The Trinity consists of three individual and unique persons who make up the One unified reality of the Godhead. Secondly, we see the commission of mankind, which is to bear this Trinitarian image of God. An image is simply a mirror—a reflection. God created humanity (body, soul, and spirit) to mirror Him, and then He established them in the divine institution called family to reproduce His image.

Therefore, the goal of people in general and the family in particular is to mirror God in the visible realm predicated on His reality in the invisible. The family is to be the visible photograph of God Himself.

Notice also in verse 26 that we read, "God said ..."

In verse 27, we see that "God created ..."

And in verse 28, we find that "God blessed ..." God said it. God created it. Then God blessed it. Don't lose sight of that, because it demonstrates that the issuance of the marriage covenant comes directly from God.

The first thing God said was that mankind will be made in "Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule ..." Be careful not to skim over that too quickly.

Here we have God creating man, male and female, and after doing so, He gives them a common goal. He says your common goal is to exercise dominion over the world in which I have placed you.

God says that mankind will mirror His image on earth, but then He says that there will be more than that for them. He is going to "let them rule." He is going to let humanity exercise dominion and authority.

What we see in verse 26 is God delegating to mankind the full responsibility for managing His earthly creation. God decides to indirectly control the affairs of earth by letting mankind exercise direct dominion. He has placed an agent on earth to serve as His representative to carry out in history His desires from eternity.

Not only does God proffer the delegation to rule, He also grants the freedom to rule, the responsibility to rule, and the right to rule on His behalf as owner. But what He does not do is force man to rule. He says, "Let them rule." He does not say He is going to make them rule.

What that means is that you can have a happy marriage or a miserable marriage depending on whether your rule is reflecting His image. God isn't going to make you rule. He isn't going to make you have a happy marriage. He sets up the fundamentals of a covenant, and gives you the option of utilizing them.

Oftentimes, the well-being of the home is determined by whether the man is reflecting God's image in his role as a kingdom man, or the woman is reflecting Him in her role as a kingdom woman. Once that mirror gets broken, the reflection that is supposed to happen in the relationship gets broken with it. Virtually every time there is a marital breakdown, it is because one or both parties are functioning outside of the covenantal fundamental of transcendence. They are functioning with a broken mirror.

God says, "I am in charge. I have made man in My own image. And now I am letting him call the shots within the parameters I have declared." That is my Evans translation of this passage in Genesis.

But don't confuse what God is saying. God is not giving up ownership of anything by relegating rulership. Psalm 24 tells us plainly, "The earth is the Lord's, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it" (v. 1). God still claims ownership. But while He claims ownership, He also grants freedom.

This truth explains a lot of things that people often ask about. Things like, "If God is God, then how did this terrible thing happen?" Or, "Why did that bad thing happen?" Or, "How is there chaos if God is a God of order?"

Things happen and there is chaos because God has said, "Let them rule." God has given man the freedom, and responsibility, to rule—for good or for bad, for yes or for no, and for positive or for negative impact.

What Satan tries to get us to do is to either relinquish our rule by handing it over to him through deceiving us into believing that he has authority, or he tries to get us to rule poorly based on our own judgments and distorted views. It isn't until we rule with wisdom under the transcendence of God that we will become the rulers He intended. It is then that we enter into the complete realization of God's design for our lives.

PARAMETERS FOR RULING

God reigns over all, but He has delegated dominion at this unique juncture in history when mankind lives on the earth. We see this in the book of Psalms. Psalm 115 says, "The heavens are the heavens of the Lord, but the earth He has given to the sons of men" (v.16).

What this means is that God has decided to respect your decisions, and that much of His action will be determined by your action. Most people are sitting around waiting on God to act, but God is often waiting on man to act. While He has maintained a base of sovereign boundaries, a sphere He will not allow men to trespass on, He has simultaneously opened up a field where we get to call the plays, leaving Him to respond accordingly.

He has not relinquished His sovereignty, but He has given us an enormous slice of dominion within it. To gain a better understanding of the purpose of our dominion, let's look at the historical context within which marriage was first placed.

When Satan rebelled, God set forth to create the human race to rule over His created order. We see this in Psalm 8:

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
The moon and the stars, which You have ordained;
What is man that You take thought of him,
And the son of man, that You care for him?
Yet You have made him a little lower than God,
And You crown him with glory and majesty!
You make him to rule over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under his feet. (vv. 3–6)

This is why, when God created Adam and Eve, He said, "Let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth" (Genesis 1:26). Then God told them to "subdue" the earth (v. 28).

In other words, it was impossible that God would not have a kingdom that would rule over and defeat the kingdom of Satan. When Jesus Christ sets up His millennial kingdom, it will be the final, triumphant declaration of God's glory. Satan will then be chained up during that time to demonstrate his utter defeat and judgment (see Revelation 20:1–3).

Yet for now, God has created you and me to harness, and rule, a part of His creation. Every person was created with that divine intent.

Why is it important for you to grasp the unfolding of God's kingdom? Because when God established the first marriage and said, "Let them rule," He stated that He would not rule independently of man—that mankind's decisions would now carry weight regarding what He did or did not do. And He did this for one reason—to demonstrate to the Devil that He could do more through a lesser creature in manifesting His glory than through the once shining star.

See, numbers of people think that there is a battle going on between God and the Devil. There is no battle going on between God and the Devil. If there were, it wouldn't last long. That's like saying, "Tony Evans and Mike Tyson are fighting." Sure, we might both climb into the ring together to duke it out, but I would be no match for Mike.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Marriage Matters by Anthony T. Evans, Christopher Reese. Copyright © 2014 Anthony T. Evans. Excerpted by permission of Moody Publishers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Moody Publishers
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802411541
• ISBN 13: 9780802411549
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 96